The Heart

The wild heart grew white in the forest;

Dark anxiety

Of death, as when the gold

Died in the grey cloud.

An evening in November.

A crowd of needy women stood at the bare gate

Of the slaughterhouse;

Rotten meat and guts fell

Into every basket;

Horrible food.

The blue dove of the evening

Brought no forgiveness.

The dark cry of trumpets

Travelled in the golden branches

Of the soaked elms,

A frayed flag

Smoking with blood,

To which am an listens

In wild despair.

All your days of nobility, buried

In that red evening!

Out of the dark entrance hall

The golden shape

Of the young girl steps

Surrounded by the pale moon,

The prince’s court of autumn,

Black fir trees broken

In the night’s storm,

The steep fortress.

O heart

Glittering above in the snowy cold