I stood shaving one morning
before the open window
one story up.
I switched the razor on.
It began to purr.
It buzzed louder and louder.
It grew to an uproar.
It grew to a helicopter
and a voice—the pilot’s—penetrated
through the din, shrieked:
“Keep your eyes open!
You’re seeing all this for the last time.”
We rose.
Flew low over the summer.
So many things I liked, have they any weight?
Dozens of dialects of green.
And especially the red of the wooden house walls.
The beetles glistened in the dung, in the sun.
Cellars that were pulled up by the roots
flew through the air.
Activity.
The printing presses crawled.
Just now the people were
the only things that were still.
They observed a minute’s silence.
And especially the dead in the country churchyard
were still
as if sitting for a picture during the camera’ infancy.
Fly low!
I didn’t know where I
turned my head—
with a double field of vision
like a horse.