“How do you find your poems?” a famous poet was once asked. “From whence come dreams?” he replied. “They ascend like bubbles in a pond whose ground I do not see. The ones which I discover before they burst are mine.”
Have you ever stood at the foot of a cliff where seagulls live, and have you listened to them cry? They cry in so many ways… It is an impressive sound when thousands of seagulls fly around a cliff, and fill the air with their cries. But you do not only hear them cry. You also hear the gentle sounds that they make when they are mating. You also hear the screaming sounds of the young birds when they are just hatched. Their call is clear, they demand what they need. It is as if they call for justice: “Here I am! I want to grow and become strong!” You can see how lovingly the seagull parents care for their youngsters. Again and again they fly away and come back with a fish in their beaks. Why do they do this, day after day? “Instinct” some scientists say. I call it love. For again and again they are in search of that which will strengthen their young. They do not care if it is raining or snowing of if there is a storm. They search for food for the young seagulls. I have also heard: If a seagull cannot care for its young ones, often another one will do the task. It will then treat them as their own. It will not ask about rain or storm or snow. It flies for these young birds that will soon no longer be young birds. Yes, soon they themselves will fly, confident in their skills to glide in the air high above the sea. It is good to grow up on a cliff where so many other seagulls are living.
Herr Gundolf said: “Yesterday when I thought of the death of my mother thirty-three years ago, I had to weep.” I asked him: “Does that make you wonder?” He shook his head: “It doesn’t make me wonder. It just surprises me.”
“Wife”, spoke the baker, “I am getting older and my strength is lessening. All my life have I baked the bread for this village. Yes, people have come from afar to buy my rolls. The day will come when I will have to lay aside my bowl of dough, and who will then continue with my trade?” For they had no children. “Go search for a young man” the woman said, “who can help you with your work, and whom you can teach all about the art of baking bread. When you are old and can no longer work, he shall continue with the shop, and you shall look at him with pride as if he were your son.” As she said it, so it was done. The baker spread the news that he was seeking an apprentice who would like to learn his trade. In the following days, four young men came into his shop, wanting to become a baker. He found it difficult to choose and asked his wife again. She said: “Tell all of them to come again!” And so he did. The first man introduced himself to the baker’s wife. She asked: “Why do you want to learn a baker’s trade?” “I like to get up early, and go to bed before the night is falling. And, what is more, a baker is among the first to hear the news of the village and of its surroundings.” The second man came and she asked him: “Why do you want to learn a baker’s trade?” “My parents died early, and I need to care for my wife and children.” The third man came and she asked him: “Why do you want to learn a baker’s trade?” “I deem it an honour to bake for men the bread that God has given us.” The fourth man came and she asked him naught. “Him we take”, she told her husband. “Why should we take him?” “When he arrived, he inhaled eagerly the scent of bread.”
Assuming you had died and discovered that there was indeed another life, and that there existed a kind of heaven and hell, but again in between so many other places, as many as there are people, only everything quite different from what the stories of old tell us… and assuming this heaven and hell and the many other places consisted of nothing more than what you have become and so remain, and that there you would constantly live with the love which you have spread, or also with your indifference and your bitterness and your anger…
And assuming that the whole of eternity were nothing more than going for walks in your life which you had and being enabled… allowed… or obliged… to observe your former life quite minutely from all sides…
And assuming you would spend your whole existence in thinking and considering: who you were… who you became… what you received… and what you gave…
And assuming that it were so, and you knew about it – what would that mean for your life here and now?
I have a large sitting room cupboard. When I moved into my apartment I had carefully cleared it out. Everything had its place. But over the years many things which didn’t belong there – or at least not any more – had found their way to the compartments, shelves and drawers. My life had changed and other things had become important.
Now I cleared out my cupboard. First I took everything out and scattered it on the floor, resulting in a wild chaos – but a chaos that made some kind of sense. All the same, I need time to organise. Some things bring back memories. I have to look at them once again. Others demand a decision. There are things which will be thrown away. There are others which will be kept, not in the cupboard, but somewhere else, for example in the attic. Again others come back into the cupboard, but in another place.
The whole cupboard should be newly organised. But first I will wipe out the cupboard, remove the dust and perhaps also polish it.
My daughter was just here. She looked at the huge chaos and said to me: “I thought you wanted to tidy up?”
In China there lived a man who had caught the wind in a preserving jar. To all visitors he said: “I’ve got him. He’s in there.” Many came and left again, shaking their heads. They had not felt any fresh wind. Some asked him: “What are you going to do with the empty jar?”
And he explained with pride: “When I need wind, I simply open the jar and immediately a cool breeze goes through the room. For example, when I receive guests in my attic apartment in the summer: ’Oof, it’s hot in here’, they groan, and I say ‘Just a moment, that’ll be solved right away’. One flick of the wrist – and a fresh breeze goes through the room. Or if something burns while cooking, with one jar of wind, all smells are quickly swept away.” Several said: “Then open the jar!”
But he answered: “For God’s sake! Then all the wind will be gone. And what should I then do with the jar?” The man kept the windows closed so that no stray puff of wind could blow the jar over and knock it to the ground. After his death, they opened the jar.
There was nothing in it other than stale air. They opened the windows. For the first time, a breath of fresh air blew through the room.
Far out at sea beyond the coast, behind the stormy cape, is a small island. It is so small that it is only shown on the most exact maps. All the same, it possesses a certain fame in informed circles. The sailors name it the “Island of Love”.
Quite a few people at some point in their lives undertake a journey there. They explore this island in detail. They thereby discover astonishing things.
Some presume, before they get to know the island better, that you will immediately get from the Coast of Being in Love to the Hill of the Homeland, and are surprised at the length of the path that leads them there, through the mysterious Valley of the Middle. Some are amazed that it is not possible for them to visit the soft slopes of the Familiar and at the same time to be at the Peak of Arousal. Others already look forward to the Pot of Passion – as the largest volcano crater of the island is called. Yet they are amazed that the ascent is quite strenuous and that it leads past the seething Chasm of Fear and the smoking Vent of Anger. Those who seek danger bathe at the Cliff of Failure at the Cape of Excessive Demands. Yet even expert swimmers have come into distress and drowned at the east-lying Ocean of Boredom.
I say this because it is often forgotten that only those who traverse the island with effort and danger find the whole beauty of this place. Some build a house on the island or put up a tent. And I have seen those who have already lived there a long time smile at the enthusiasm of the newcomers who still harbour hope of exploring the Island of Love in only one day or a week.
“I won’t die before Mary is in her place again!” It sounded quiet and sure from Erna’s mouth. It was autumn. The pneumatic drills hammered on the street and a sweet, biting smell of tar lay in the air. This was the house of Erna’s parents. She had lived here since she was a small child. She could still remember this place when the horses and carts used to be the mode of transport and then, later the first trams! She hung on to this place which was filled with memories.
But mostly she loved the fountain in the centre, the fountain with the statue of the Virgin Mary. The marketplace had been extensively pulled up. The workers had carried the fountain away. Experts had first carefully marked each stone so as to be able to rebuild it exactly as it was. When the new year came, the square was newly plastered. And finally the fountain with the statue of the Virgin Mary also returned to its place.
For a couple of days Erna enjoyed the new and yet long-familiar view. Then she was ready.
He had stayed alone for years. He had tried everything. Now he wondered how it had been possible for him not to find a girlfriend, even though he had wished for one. He looked at the uncomfortable sofa in his living room, at the stained armchairs, and at the oversized couch table. He looked at the creaking old bed in his bedroom, with a mattress that was too small for the wooden frame. “The furniture’s not ready yet”, he said. He bought a new sofa, new armchairs, a new table, and a new bed. Three weeks later he met a woman with whom he would share many happy days.