Wulf Kirsten

In this poem Wulf Kirsten describes the hill above Weimar, the Ettersberg, a hill 'of contradictions, of both Goethe and Buchenwald'.

I

Bleak day in a bleak place, lifted to hilltop,
towards ground a swathe of black clouds,
sheer over quarry and grazing land
the wheezing storm bellows, bites
into wood, jangling and rattling
through the dead’s forest, a blizzard
sweeps down at an angle,
how it rips and blows through the leaves
that cover the place of the skulls,
suddenly lifted on high, airworthy
and light: birch wood, Buchenwald weather.

2

Iron hoops on the steep slope,
smashed tin sheeting,
rust-eaten utensils,
scattered wildly in the undergrowth
thriving on clumps of rubble,
dogwood covers the stretch up
as easily, unaided, as I do,
plate halves, bowls,
Rosenthal mark porcelain,
a leather shoe crumbles
before my eyes, up there
barracks, barracks, occupied
by Death’s Head units,
all-calculating barbarians,
who scattered out
in wild flight, devils
in hiding, as good honest people
resurrected, peaceable,
never hurt a fly, useful members,
even if without memory.

3

Sea detritus, soul-darkened the chalk face,
cut out of the hill, stone-carrier
Poller, his shoulder raw and he
like a ton of lead, up the abrupt slope,
its switchback path, as if fate’s millwheel
ground him, on stone in the earth names write
the dead, caught in the line of guards’ towers,
here Scholem went, there Minister Winterstein,
captive in nature, an endless chain
of names, without any defence,
a grey day, that gives me no rest, no-one
else going down these paths for the eye
past leafless growths, starting points
over the edge, treacherous
on limestone, the ruthless hordes like blown
chaff, from this shack, on whose outline
I stand, the kapos leapt out, thrashed
with shovel handles, until they broke.
Gently rising lines, moss-covered
hill caps, over bodies brought to standstill
in the hauled out quarry, shut down,
as if nothing had happened.