The Staghorn Sumac for Peter Schneider Poem by Uwe Kolbe

It was probably due to boredom that I noticed it.
We were waiting again - station Schönhauser Allee -
for a train on the northern ring, on the half that had remained of it.
Commuters train colored red and yellow, with a whistle it came to a halt,
I took a seat by the window, to watch from nearby:
out of itself, out of a dry nothing
one did put forth real leaves. I asked the father what that might be:
a staghorn sumac, and it‘s sprouting new leaves and twigs.
I answered: But it can‘t survive at this spot!
You see that it can, this lad is so modest; it works.

There was no light, at least not at usual times,
when we were waiting here, I only recently fascinated
by this lad, or better this little one, who is fighting so bravely for his life.
Its feeble trunk almost leant against the power rail in front of it,
behind it rose a gloomy wall that formed arches,
inviting one every time to daydream.
There, where the arches separate, a ventilation hole,
that‘s what I said, each like a smaller cross,
designed for uses unknown, why the ventilation?
Maybe simply as an ornament. The child didn‘t think that way.

His vision was with these vaults, where the grass had been growing since the end of the war,
and recently he talked to his friend, the tree,
which had no chance to become one, because all the trains that passed
daily, minutewise, dragged it with the airstream
and it took all its power to keep hold of its leaves, nothing more.
In a low voice, of course, did I talk to what was nearly a tree.
It was my model, although I never called its name.
Rarely, but when I go there and look after it,
it is a game, with eyes blindfolded, feeling dizzy,
although by now I'm an adult and know the rules



English version by Sapphire/Ramona Lofton