Искусствоед
Ingeborg Bachmann
Gedichte 1945-1956
Wie soll ich mich nennen?

читать дальше


Ingeborg Bachmann
The Collected Poems
Poems 1945-1956
How Shall I Name Myself?

Once I was a tree that had been bound,
and then I was born as a free bird;
chained up in a ditch I was later found,
escaping an egg that was covered with dirt.

What supports me? I have forgotten
from where I come and where I'm headed,
in several bodies I live on,
a hard thorn and the deer that fled.

Today I befriend the maple branch,
tomorrow I will attack the tree...
When did guilt begin its own road dance
by which I drifted from seed to seed.

But a beginning sings inside me still
— or and end — and it prevents me escape,
I will evade this arrow of guilt
that in sand grains, wild ducks, seeks my shape.

Perhaps I can once more see myself,
maybe a dove or a rolling stone...
Words fail! How shall I name myself
without living in another tongue.

transl. by Peter Filkins

@темы: b, 20, deutsche-oesterreichisch, bachmann, ingeborg