[Over karst gaps] Poem by Christian Lehnert

Over karst gaps, overgrown, clad in dripping oilcloth
I clamber wall after wall into a dark luminescence: through

gorges, deeper than the gaze of those to follow can ever
penetrate, a shepherd roamed this way and that, dug caves, his head

hidden in bulging crusts. Thousands of rainy seaons yet to come
ere Baal spills semen on the earth's flat dish, cattle

are visible possessions. Cud. A rattle. Here we'd find
related names, roots of verbs: animals approach, licking up

wind stalks, panting wind stalks, dust moistened
by red nostrils (moon sickles) in narrow orbit. One,

however, stayed with a calf, as a relic of colour on the edge
of an icon hazy warmth streaming up to my forehead.

Translated by Hans-Christian Oeser & Gabriel Rosenstock