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“Birth” by Georg Trakl 🇦🇹 (3 Feb 1887 – 3 Nov 1914)
Translated from the German by Jim Doss & Werner Schmitt
These mountains: blackness, silence, and snow.
The red hunter climbs down from the forest;
Oh the mossy gaze of the wild thing.
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The peace of the mother: under black firs
The sleeping hands open by themselves
When the cold moon seems ready to fall.
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The birth of man. Each night
Blue water washes over the rockbase of the cliff;
The fallen angel stares at his reflection with sighs,
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Something pale wakes up in a suffocating room.
The eyes
Of the stony old woman shine, two moons.
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The cry of the woman in labor. The night troubles
The boy’s sleep with black wings,
With snow, which falls with ease out of the purple clouds.