Guericke's sparrow

of the mantis religiosa. polished brass,
its recipient a glass sphere: and here too
is the sparrow, now beginning to flutter
like the flame on a spirit of wine - its air
growing ever thinner. before the window
the yellow plums ripen in the buzzing heat,
the grass spreads on the ruins. and on the wall
hangs this engraving: old magdeburg.
the unswerving progress of the pendulum clock,
diopter, pedometer, astrolabe;

the globe on the table where new zealand's
dorsal has shortly cut through
the great pacific, and as if from afar
the dogged trot of a passing horse and cart.
"that dead sparrow," whispers one,
"will yet fly through an empty sky".

Translated into English by Iain Galbraith