A Brecht for a Birthday

O delight in beginnings!  O early mornings!
First grass, when you’ve forgotten
what green looks like!  O first page of a book
long anticipated, full of surprises!  To be read
Langsam, for all too soon
the part you’ve not read will be slender!  And the first dash                                                                                                                                    \ of cold water

on a face suffused in sweat!  And a fresh,
cool shirt!  O beginnings of love!  Glance, that goes astray!
O beginning of a task!  Topping up the oil
on a still-cold machine, the first catch and first hum
of the motor starting up!  And that first drag,
how the smoke fills the lungs!  And you too,
new thought!

A version of an untitled poem of c. 1945 by Bertolt Brecht, beginning ‘O Lust des Beginnens!’; done by Harry Gilonis in Spring 2023 for Augustus Young, Aetat LXXX, July 9 2023