Palau

“Red is evening on Palau Island

and the shadows sink—”

sing, also from the calyxes of woman

it is there to drink,

mortuary birds screech

and the deathwatch nigh

knocks, soon it will be

lemures and night.

Hot reefs. Come from eucalyptus

tropic and palming,

what still holds and stays,

wants also falling

even to the void of limb,

even to nothingness,

down in creation’s womb

darkling seas.

Red is evening on the island of Palau

and in shimmer-shade

rises climbing from twilight and dew:

“never and always”,

all the world’s deaths

are ferries and fords,

and with strangeness beset

even your births—

Once with offering-fat

on the grove of pines

off goes your flaming bed

as to the coast go wines,

megaliths piled

and the graves and halls,

hammer of Thor in flight

to the Aesir fallen—

How the gods pass

and the great Caesars,

from the cheek of Zeus

gone upwards—

sing, the world caroms

now in the strangest swing,

we taste the coin of Charon

long since under our tongue.

Coupling. Your seas raise

sepias, corals,

what still holds and stays,

wants also to stall,

red is evening on the island of Palau,

shimmer of eucalyptus

rises in runes from twilight and dew:

never and always.

Gottfried Benn