A poetic reinterpretation of Dichterliebe inspired by Heine, as sung by Thomas Quasthoff.
In the ripest, most fevered hour of May,
when the world splits open in a susurrus of petals,
my heart tore itself into song,
an orchard unpruned, gnarled with sweetness.
The bird-choirs aimed their beaks at the sun,
and I, undone, let slip my confession:
a hunger, a thirst, a slow crucifixion
that tasted like your name.
From tears salted black with midnight,
flowers clawed their way into bloom,
brazen, unashamed.
My sighs rose up like an opera of nightingales,
a fevered chorus pressing itself to your window,
if you’d only listen.
I used to think roses, doves, and the sun
were the pinnacle of wonder,
but that was before.
Before the small, unsullied miracle of you.
Now every rose is just a rose.
Every dove merely a bird.
You are every wonder
folded into a single, impossible moment.
When I dared to drown in the ocean of your eyes
now just ink on a page
suffering dissolved, shamefaced.
I taste the ghost of your lips,
a vow of muted thunder.
More healing than a thousand apothecaries,
it blurred my vision with tears
before vanishing like fog from a mirror.
If petals understood the depth of my wound,
they would collapse at sunrise, weeping dew.
If nightingales fathomed my grief,
their songs would shatter into dirges,
notes quivering like something broken.
And if the silent stars knew how my heart was scissored in two,
they’d rip themselves from the sky like burning cries
and I would nurse at the breast of the void.
But it’s only you, my want,
who truly understands the shape of the wound you carved.
Listen: trumpets and strings tear the air,
a wedding reel – riotous, obscene.
Perhaps my once-cherished dream
now puppeteered by false laughter.
Behind all that brightness,
angels murmur through clenched teeth, shackled.
A lie, a contradiction.
Each time that old melody
the one you sang when hope was still unbruised
rises from the past like a ghost with unfinished business,
sorrow takes a knife to my chest.
Darkness nudges me toward a high forest ridge,
where grief, given permission, liquefies, wailing.
Night by night, I waltz with you in dreamland.
You cradle a wreath of ivy
“Servus…” A silent invitation. A farewell.
But morning wrenches me back, empty-handed,
word and wreath gone like mist.
Like some old legend, a phantom hand beckons
paler than lost memory
luring me toward a realm beyond.
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