Another Gottfriend Benn poem, this time from the collection Statische Gedichte (Static Poems), which originally came out in 1948 or so, after his publishing ban was lifted.
Wer allein ist —
Wer allein ist, ist auch im Geheimnis,
immer steht er in der Bilder Flut,
ihrer Zeugnung, ihrer Keimnis,
selbst die Schatten tragen ihre Glut.Trächtig ist er jeder Schichtung
denkerisch erfüllt und aufgespeart,
mächtig ist er der Vernichtung
allem Menschlichen, das nährt und paart.Ohne Rührung sieht er, wie die Erde
eine andere ward, als ihm begann,
nicht mehr Stirb und nicht mehr Werde:
formstill sieht ihn die Vollendung an.
The day in review, bullet-point version:
- Got up later than expected and enjoyed a cup of coffee before bussing to the library via the #4, aka the short bus.
- Spent several hours during the afternoon in the library, 4th floor East Asian Reading Room, which is still not that busy during the winter break. Christoph said he would be at the library, but I suspect he was elsewhere in the building doing his diss work.
- I didn’t get through any Latin; I took my Basque book with me (Wim Jansen, author), but decided that I had more important things to do.
- The newest (I think) barista at Fair Trade (she was training there in November or such) still has a lot to learn. I asked for a cranberry fritter and got cherry. Still, it’s an improvement over the time she was unable to ring things up properly. I am reminded of the season 6 episode when Buffy starts a job at the Doublemeat Palace.
- The place was not quite deserted but still rather empty, perhaps 15%-20% full.
- I meant to draw, but instead I wrote and took notes. It’s a standard Friday night, so perhaps I’ll doodle this evening instead.
I am sort of looking forward to the beginning of the semester (still far away), but I would like to know whether my teaching position will pan out … will I teach 226 or will a section be cancelled? As usual, the department is a bit slow in letting us know — how can I write a syllabus, plan lessons, etc., when I do not even know whether I’ll be employed? I don’t want another fall-2006 situation, in which one week before classes began it was finalized what I’d be teaching … thus no time to plan for the semester, and, unfortunately, I feel my students got the short end of things as a result.
One of the things I wanted to do (if I teach this term) was add Berlin content as an overarching theme of some sort. A good deal of expressionist poetry is Berlin-related, which is nice. I recently (as in: today) acquired a good deal of Berlin, a comic/graphic-novel by Jason Lutes.
