Dec 2018
Your soul, which loves my own,
Is woven with it into an old Tibetan rug.
Strand by strand, these enamored colours,
Stars, that courted each other across heaven's length.
Our feet are resting on this treasure
Stitches numbering in the thousands.
Sweet desert son on your musk plant throne,
How long has your mouth kissed my own
and cheek to cheek has time in colour woven us?
-Else Lasker-Schüler (Translation : Westley Barnes, 2018)
Is woven with it into an old Tibetan rug.
Strand by strand, these enamored colours,
Stars, that courted each other across heaven's length.
Our feet are resting on this treasure
Stitches numbering in the thousands.
Sweet desert son on your musk plant throne,
How long has your mouth kissed my own
and cheek to cheek has time in colour woven us?
-Else Lasker-Schüler (Translation : Westley Barnes, 2018)
This is my translation of the poem "Ein alter Tippettepich" by the German poet Else Lasker-Schüler (1869-1945). Lasker-Schüler's work became synonymous in her own lifetime with the German Expressionist movement, and her work was featured in the editorials of many of her contemporaries, including Karl Kraus (1874-1936) in his journal Der Fackel. As a Jewish author and illustrator famed for her bohemian lifestyle during the Weimar Republic, Lasker-Schüler fled to Jerusalem in 1934.
The poem, originally published in 1910, is in the public domain.
The poem, originally published in 1910, is in the public domain.
