Come wilderness into our homes

Daniela Danz
Translated from the German

break the windows comewith your roots and your wormsspread yourself over our wishesour waste-sorting systems our prothesesand outstanding paymentscover us with your rustling greeneryand your spores cover us that we maybecome green: green and reverentgreen and manifest green and replaceablecome weather with your stormsand sweep the slates off the roofs comewith snow and hail smashthrough the collective sleepwe are all enjoying in our bedsour worn rationalizations come iceand form glaciers over the shadow banksand our drive for liquiditycome through the cracks under the doorsyou desert with your sands fillour desolation up until it forms into a solid massrise up over the search-and-rescue teamsand our growth compulsion trickle intothe control panels of the missilesand the missile defense systems intothe think tanks and the hearts of internet trollsjust leave the hedgehogs with theirsnuffling so that it may calm uscome rising sea levelsup over our shorelines both the developedand the undeveloped the homeylowland areas washjellyfish into our soup bowlsand ramshorn snails into our hairas we swim in each other’s direction panickedwith our yearning for one anotherbecause almost nothing is left because it’s all goneand thoroughly soaked through with regretsfinger-pointing and tranquilizerscome earthquakes shatter the apartmentswhich we built on the foundationsof how we always did everythingcome tremors fill the mine shaftsthe end of work andthe literature of redemption bury angerand affection and all manner of added valuesswallow up the memories come tremorshurry so that the bedrock covers usso we are covered with water desert weatherand over everything that which covers all the wilderness Komm Wildnis in unsere Häuserzerbrich die Fenster kommmit deinen Wurzeln und Würmernüberwuchere unsere WünscheMülltrennungssysteme Prothesenund Zahlungsverpflichtungenwirf dein raschelndes Laub auf unsund deine Sporen wirf dass wirgrün werden grün und andächtiggrün und greifbar grün und ersetzlichkomm Wetter mit deinen Stürmenund feg die Ziegeln weg kommmit Schnee und Hagel zerschlagden einvernehmlichen Schlafden wir in unseren Betten führendie müden Erklärungen komm Eisvergletscher die Schattenbankenund unseren Trieb zur Liquiditätkomm Wüste mit deinem Sanddurch die Ritzen der Türen füllunsere Ödnis an bis zur Starrekomm über die Bergungsteamsden Wachstumszwang rieselein die Tastaturen die Raketenund Raketenabwehrsysteme indie Denkfabriken die Trollherzennur lass die Igel übrig mit ihremSchnaufen um uns zu beruhigenkomm steigender Meeresspiegelüber unsere Uferzonen die bebautendie unbebauten die heimatseligenprofitablen Flachlandzonen spüleQuallen auf unsere Suppentellerund Posthornschnecken ins Haarwenn wir aufeinander zuschwimmenpanisch vor Sehnsucht nacheinanderweil so wenig bleibt weil alles hin istund gründlich aufgeweicht von ReueSchuldzuweisungen Neuroleptikakommt Erdstöße erschüttert unsereWohnungen die wir gegründet habenauf allem was wir schon immer somachen komm Beben und verschüttedie Schächte das Ende der Arbeit undunsere rettenden Lektüren begrab Zornund Zuneigung und sämtliche Zugewinneverschluck die Erinnerungen kommBeben mach schnell das der Fels unsbedeckt über uns Wasser Wüste Wetterund die alles alles bedeckende Wildnis

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Photo:
Matthias Eckert

Daniela Danz was born in the GDR/Germany in 1976. She studied Art History and German Literature and wrote her Ph.D. thesis on the construction of hospital chapels. Afterwards she worked as director of a literature museum. She is vice-president of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bavaria. Danz teaches creative writing at the University of Hildesheim. She has published four volumes of poetry, Serimunt, Pontus, V and Wildniss, two novels, Lange Fluchten and Türmer, and a book of essays. She has also written opera libretti, such as that for Ben Frost’s opera The Murder of Halit Yozgat, in cooperation with the research agency Forensic Architecture. For her work she has received several awards, such as the German Award for Nature Writing, and the Awards of the Academies of Arts in Bavaria and Berlin. In 2024 she curated the International Poetry Festival Poetica at the University of Cologne.

Photo:
Anna Yarrow

Monika Cassel’s poems and translations from German have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, AGNI, The Georgia Review, Guesthouse, Orion, POETRY, Poetry Northwest, and Zócalo Public Square. She is a teaching artist with Writers in the Schools in Portland, OR and holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College.

December 2023

Chicago, Illinois

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Adrian Matejka

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Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. Harriet Monroe’s “Open Door” policy, set forth in Volume I of the magazine, remains the most succinct statement of Poetry’s mission: to print the best poetry written today, in whatever style, genre, or approach.

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