Rennert/White 63 Three Poems by Marie Luise Kaschnitz Translation and Commentary: Hal H. Rennert Musical Setting: John D. White Listening Image Recorded The pounding of the pistons The rolling wheels Ringing of the telephone Agnus Dei Fleeting steps Barking dogs in the suburb Music box Adding the sound From the chest of a man His wheezing Getting shorter Breaths of air Superimposed His memories Of certain ocean breakers Which I let dominate Powerfully up the cliffs While his breath Getting smaller extinguishes. 64 Delos Hörbild Aufgenommen Das Stampfen der Kolben Die rollenden Räder Telefongeklingel Agnus Dei Gerufene Namen Flüchtende Schritte Hundegebell in der Vorstadt Orchestrion Dazu das Geräusch Aus der Brust eines Mannes Seine keuchenden Immer kürzeren Atemzüge Eingeblendet Seine Erinnerung An eine gewisse Brandung Die ich überhandnehmen lasse Mächtig felsaufwärts Während sein Atem Klein wird erlischt. Rennert/White 65 66 Delos Rennert/White 67 68 Delos No Magic Incantation Some replies Could be opposed Decapitating the young Black walnut by the storm And all those other More frightful Gorgon heads. No magic incantation No gesture Words written long ago I will enter In my text Such as from Thomas Aquinas Because evil exists God exists. Kein Zauberspruch Einiges wäre Entgegenzuhalten Der jungen von Sturm Geköpften Schwarznuß Und allen viel schrecklicheren Gorgonhäuptern. Kein Zauberspruch Keine Geste Worte einmal aufgeschrieben Will ich meinen Text einfügen. Etwa diese Aus Aquino Weil das Böse ist Ist Gott. Rennert/White 69 70 Delos Rennert/White 71 Birds Birds – a couple still But how unequal now One greedily pecking Life’s smallish leftover Among the warm leaves The other flown off Its clear shadow Gliding across the snowy field Circling thrice Each time paler yet No cry from the clouds No feather descending. Vögel Ein Paar Vögel noch immer Aber wie ungleich jetzt Einer gierig aufpickend Den kleinen Lebensrest Im warmen Laub Der andere entflogen Sein klarer Schatten Gleitet übers Schneefeld Zieht Kreise drei Jder ein wenig blasser Kein Schrei aus den Wolken Keine Feder herab. 72 Delos Rennert/White 73 74 Delos Commentary: Each of the three poems was first published in Kein Zauberspruch (1972), one of five volumes of poetry by Marie Luise Kaschnitz during her life-time (1901- 1974). The poem “Vögel” (Birds) was actually written in the early 1960s, shortly after her husband, the art historian Guido von Weinberg-Kaschnitz, had died in 1958. One literary critic refers to this poem perceptively as a secular requiem (“ein weltliches Requiem”). Although there is a strong biographical element in Kaschnitz’s writing, her range of themes is much deeper and wider. She shares with other German and other European writers the classical humanism of mid-twentieth century and straddles a complex and enlightened Weltanschauung as, for example, her friendships to Theodor Adorno, Paul Celan, Dolf Sternberger and Ingeborg Bachmann demonstrate. My fellow colleagues in the field of German Studies in North America are familiar with her famous short story, “Das dicke Kind” (The Fat Child), if for no other reason than it’s ubiquitous appearance in undergraduate textbooks. A selection of her poems from four collections appearing in German-speaking countries in Europe between 1957 and 1972 were included in The Selected Later Poems of Marie Luise Kaschnitz, translated by Lisel Mueller, Princeton University Press, 1980. John White and I have collaborated on literary-musical projects for over thirty years. The Kaschnitz Lieder project grew out of a larger prospective monograph on the poetry and short prose of Kaschnitz and my research at the German Literature Archive in Marbach, Germany, where her literary estate, that is, her manuscripts, letters and papers (Nachlass) is located. I took up John White’s challenge – with an eye and ear to possible successful musical settings – selecting ten of Kaschnitz’s best poems from an oeuvre of over one thousand published and several dozen unpublished poems for translation. The three poems in the current issue of Delos represent an additional refinement of this challenge.