Collected Poems

NORTHERN PIKE; "Bleibe, bleibe bei mir"

Let us two die Down with the two deer. I believe that love among us And those two animals Has its place in the Brilliance of the sun that is More gold than gold, And in virtue. NORTHERN PIKE All right. Try this, Then. Every body I know and care for, And every body Else is going To die in a loneliness I can't imagine and a pain I don't know. We had To go on living. We Untangled the net, we slit The body of this fish Open from the hinge of the tail To a place beneath the chin I wish I could sing of. I would just as soon we let The living go on living. An old poet whom we believe in Said the same thing, and so We paused among the dark cattails and prayed For the muskrats, For the ripples below their tails, For the little movements that we knew the crawdads were making under water, For the right-hand wrist of my cousin who is a policeman. We prayed for the game warden's blindness. We prayed for the road home. We ate the fish. There must be something very beautiful in my body, I am so happy. NEW POEMS 213 Bleibe, bleibe bei mir, Holder Fremdling, siisse Liebe, Holds siisse Liebe, Und verlasse die Seele nicht! Ach, wie anders, wie scho'n Lebt der Himmel, lebt die Erde, Ach, wie fiihl ich, wie fiihl ich Dieses Leben zum erstenmal! Goethe 214 ...