INSTRUCTIONS FOR FLYING Poem by Ulrike Almut Sandig

I. spread your arms out at shoulder height and behave like you can fly.
II. be like the priest in his black cassock who, unbeknown to him,
lifted up off the floor in the middle of the final blessing,
flew to the belfry, fell into deep sleep, and deeper.
III. keep to the stunted hedges at the edge of the village, the
banks of fog, the woods.
IV. shake on the implacable tree of history, whatever the blowback.
V. don't let yourself be hurried. and if they hurry you, take flight.
VI. don't let yourself be harried. and if they harry you, find a way out.
VII. find hiding places. climb up trees, don't build yourself a house.
VIII. be like the fly with a noose round its chitin neck, who flew
circuits in the kitchen light, until a bored kid had enough of
the game. clean your wounds.IX. climb on top of a boundary wall and jump for joy. crawl under
the wire mesh fences and find a way through.
X. trust in centrifugal force to get away.
XI. be like the bat that flew straight out of the lab window, without
bumping into anything, after someone pricked out both its eyes, in order
to research echolocation.
XII. employ no cunning. take no comfort. count up to thirteen and
jump.