Motionless Hunt Poem by Nora Bossong

The stables down from the slope, they say
that a marten or a fox got the rabbit, no one
is sure, it's rare that anyone stays here
at night. The house too large
for a house, the people too rich,
not of my time. But still we go
hunting together, through the overgrown
edges of the family estate, no animals
crack twigs in the undergrowth, no cadaver
leaves its smell like a spooky ancestor
on the boundaries of the grounds. I believe that the terrace
hides everything, no one
is following me, and why should they, my days
lie elsewhere. Only the white-tailed eagles on the poles
don't let me out of their sight, I feel
their sharp eyes staring at my nape,
until I stumble, but that is immaterial, just
a short-term alteration of the old edifice.

Translated by Donna Stonecipher