The patterns
of rainfall and afforestation,
the veins of village streams—
I colored them in
as I saw fit.

My beloved spiders
wove a second pattern
on top,
which I approved
before leaving.





Günter Eich (1907–1972) was a noted German poet and radio dramatist who won the Georg Büchner Preis in 1959. His translator, Michael Hofmann, is a poet and German translator; his versions of Eich will be out soon in book form in Angina Days: Selected Poems of Günter Eich (Princeton).