Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SLEEPING WITH NIETZSCHE, by MARGARET HOLLEY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SLEEPING WITH NIETZSCHE, by                    
First Line: In sils maria the water sings all night
Subject(s): Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (1844-1900)


In Sils Maria the water sings all night.
Moonlight slides over stones
in iron-cold Alpine streams rippling down the mountain
toward stillness:
the lake is a tarnished mirror,
a hole in the earth filled to the brim with sky.
Filling the tub with hot water, I lower myself in
beside the folded towel and terrycloth robe,
sink my head under,
and only come up for breath.
The postbus honks,
and laughter erupts downstairs in the Edelweiss.

Later, resting my head in a mountain of pillows,
I let the stream pour through it.
With a pile of books by the bed, I lie awake,
high on philosophy, high on the poetry
Nietzsche penned in this village,
high on his dream

of a future.
He is the wrong kind of man, I think.
He'll go mad, he'll be taken up by the Nazis.
All my ghosts hang around
not knowing what to make of this liaison.
How dangerous ideas are!

Humans might not always be exactly as they are now.
You, starchild, will not always be
as you are tonight.
In fact, here is your one hope.
The house sleeps with all its windows open,
and the fire that whispered

while I ate soup and bread whispers all night.
Churchbells clang out the hours.
I keep the heat from the clawfoot tub
under the mound of quilt.
The mind, too, sleeps with its windows open
in the huge hotel of night,
where I incubate in the iron-cold Alpine air
and the music of rivers all over earth,
where even the boulders dream
in their hillside,
larch needles go on turning to gold,
and the hemlocks lift and lift their heavy wings.

Copyright © Margaret Holley
http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm
Prairie Schooner is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which
publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the
prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the
campus-based literary journals.







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