A carriage
pulled by donkeys in yellow gloves
rides into the village square
The moon shines in the sky
carrying the wild night on its shoulders
Lamb clouds darken with fear –
chased by a wolf – the Evening
Out of the carriage looks HE – twenty years on his head
and SHE just a little less
People along the road graze on them with their eyes
tearing piece by piece from their bodies:
For the First Time
For the Last Time
Once
Above the procession
glows in a long strip
the centre of our Galaxy
toward the constellation of the Eagle –
breathing with a thin and fragile balance of the Universe
But no one here cares
astronomy is beyond their gaze
People say: it will rain
or: not a drop for a week
We have fun today – at last!
The fever won’t catch us –
in the lit dormers
under the red cockerel of roofs no one dies
The Two walk in a tight grip –
squeezing knuckles – but their touches are cold
For both –
this evening is stiff in shoulders
and they are forgetting
they are not just wooden figurines
Behind them the musicians -
trumpets tinny singing
the violins would rather not
A march of beats and musicians
walking through the quiet open land
The neighbour stretches her neck like a giraffe
to catch a piece of the wedding melody –
torn by cold and tossed in the wind
over the fences
Grandma and grandpa joke –
baring their gappy teeth at wooden chairs
The village wheel turns
***
Before the inn already waits a crowd:
Downcast eyes
a smile or a glance up –
Two three scarves
– the rest bare-headed
A shovel sinks into the soft soil
a pint slams on the table
and someone retches at the thought
that tomorrow the innkeeper will wade
through a stubble of empty battered chairs
asleep in the wildest positions
It’s
alive
loud
noisy
but not a single clear word crawls out of their mouths
Only the innkeeper laughs like an animal
but no one minds
no one thinks of him or of the lovers now
They are forgotten sooner
than they managed to grow up into their wedding clothes
Dinner ends –
Midnight is coming
The coachman cracks his whip
people jostle at the door
They push HER and HIM outside –
huddled together
so they don’t feel the silence and dark
on the way to church
at the hour of ghosts
Outside the snow creaks
frost flows along the ground
The holy mass in a church without a roof
flies straight into the ears of night
The priest searches in the book for Holy Scripture
like grains in a field
and at the words of the Last Judgement
the graves behind the church come alive
The lovers kneel on the tiles
eyes hanging on the cross
Their hands are trembling
but the crowd sweeps them up
tears the shyness
slides on the wedding rings
and joins together the first married kisses
***
The way from the church is easier –
outside God cannot guard them
All the pagan desires stand along the road
hidden behind the dewy trees