This is what awful Yeitse said
At the moccasin game,
That great destroyer,
That bad fucking news:
Woe! Woe!
You should have left it where it was!
I would have played it there,
You should have let it lie!
Striking the ground hugely
So that the tent-rags shook,
He guessed wrong,
Knowing someone had moved the stone.
Some of the people were
Always up to no good,
Making up evil games.
Pretty soon they made some monsters.
Oh, women, women!
What did you need so badly,
What midnight things did you practice?
Now what will become of your own children?
Oh, men, men!
What did you want so much,
Why did you never stop?
Now what will become of your own children?
The first people came up, they say,
Up through four worlds,
Up through a hollow reed, they say,
Up to this world.
When they arrived
This world was dark
Then someone said
It will not always be this way.
The clouds shone
Then birds came, talking loud.
Sun took hold the mountain
And leaped into the sky.
Day came
Then the waters rose in mist.
Spider-woman caught a fly
To celebrate dawn.
(translated from the German of Ranier Maria Rilke)
As fire lives in the cold matchstick
Before its striking, which when struck
Flicks out white tongues of flame from every side —
So she, within that curious circle, side to side,
Her body quick and hot and bright
Darts out, and back, and dances out again —
And suddenly she blazes up in flame.
Her kindled eyes ignite her hair,
And she with perfect skill whirls up her skirt
Into that swirling pyre,
From out of which, like writhing snakes,
Her naked arms rise rattling, waked by fire.
But then – as if the fire pressed her too close,
She spins it up into a ball – and casts it off,
And spurns it with her heel and with her eye
Imperious it lies, still raging, still alive,
Fueled with itself, and not to be denied –
Till she, unflinching, lifts her face up sweetly
Heavenward, with gentle, loving smile,
And stamps it out with small, firm feet.
Words: my translation of Spanische Tänzerin by Ranier Maria Rilke (ca. 1906) [public domain in U.S.]
Image: Dancer in Pigalle by Gino Severinix (1912) [public domain in U.S.]
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