drafts/roughs

(AFTER GOETHE’S WANDERERS
NACHTLIED II)

Hear all the hilltops lapse
Until each copse of trees
Drops so still and the air
Sleeps when the birds cease
Their songs: slowly, down-eased,
The forest stops and naps.
Where is this place? Nowhere.
Tear up your maps.


Hear all the hilltops lapse
Until each copse of trees
Drops still and silence saps
Every birdsong the air
Can nest: slowly, down-eased,
The forest stops and naps.
Where is this place? Nowhere.
Tear up your maps.

Hear all the hilltops lapse
Until each copse of trees
Drops so still that the air
Sleeps and the birds repair
From song: slowly, down-eased,
The forest stops and naps.
Where is this place? Nowhere.
Tear up your maps.



Hear all the hilltops lapse
Until each copse of trees
Drops so still the air saps
The sound and then birds spare
To sing: slowly, down-eased,
The forest stops and naps.
Where is this place? Nowhere.
Tear up your maps.


Hear all the hilltops lapse
Until each copse of trees
Drops so still that there
Is scarely an air
Left for the birds to share
Their songs: slowly, by degrees,
Like you the forest stops.
Where is this place? Nowhere.
Tear up your maps.


Hear all the hilltops lapse 
And then each copse of trees
Drops so still that the air
Sighs when


Drops so still and the air
Fall silent as

So thick with sleep it saps
birdsong.

/

Hear the hinter hilltops
and now each tree-copse
hush when the wind drops
below a breeze, as
slowly the wing-flaps
of birds through the air
and their song ceases—
listen: not a sound.
Has it here been found,
that longsought Nowhere.
Tear up your maps.

/
Is it at last found
/
Has it now/here been found,
that longsought Nowhere?

/
and then the wing-flaps
of the birds lose sound,
and all their songs cease
to bruit the air:
Slowly, by degrees,
like you the forest stops.


///// Perhaps it's now been found,
that longsought Nowhere.
Tear up your maps.



Hear the hinter hilltops
and each crop of trees


and how each tree copse
hushes when the wind drops
below a breeze, as



Hear how the hinter hilltops
and then each copse of trees
hush when the wind drops
below a breeze, as
finally the wing-flaps
of birds through the air
and their song ceases—
listen: not a sound.
Has it now been found,
that longsought Nowhere?
Tear up your maps,
uncork that flask of schnapps.

and have another swig of schnapps.

lean back, have a swig of schnapps.

have another mug/jug of schnapps.

hoist your stein/wineskin of schnapps.

///