Midwinter Lyrics

Winterpastell (Grafik: Martin Dühning)
Winterpastell (Grafik: Martin Dühning)

Midwinter is just around the corner, a time of fading lights and deep hope for better times. A phase of inner reflection: time to review, time for enlightenment, for dreaming.

Forest Fairy Poem - Text und Grafik: Martin Dühning
Forest Fairy Poem – Text und Grafik: Martin Dühning

Forest Fairy

Where have the foxes gone?
They sleep in their dreams
Of endless love, charity
Which never ends.

Even though night reigns
In a restless, harsh world
You can be sure,
That nothing, that heals,
Ever is truly lost.

 * * *

Liz - Visual Poem (Text & graphic: Martin Dühning)
Liz – Visual Poem (Text & graphic: Martin Dühning)

Liz

I never knew you well, little fellow,
I only followed the shadow,
The summer day, late, hushed.

I must confess:
You touched me, briefly,
As if by mistake, but it wasn’t …

I remember, I remember:
Words of friendship, I heard
In homely conversations on weekends,
Enveloped by Saturn’s heaviness,

And of dark nights I’ve been told –
You have driven away –
I can hardly believe
That such a small spirit
Can be so great light in other lives.

But we are exuberant humans,
We only believe in us and we know little.
And maybe, I will see you again one day,
In another world, which is better
And more open to the little creatures.

* * *

Midwinter

Where there is a lack of good spirits,
Evil’s expanding evermore.
For it needs hope and courage
To face the adversities of life.

But where the kind spirit is lacking,
There is only emptiness or bitterness:
It is like winter darkness
That knows no new spring.

Oh, let us hope for a new time,
Where we think alive again,
Instead of weeping
After an undead morbid idol.

* * *

Das Bildgedicht "Stars Rising", gelayoutet mit der Schriftart Alkes (Grafik und Text: Martin Dühning)
Das Bildgedicht „Stars Rising“, gelayoutet mit der Schriftart Alkes (Grafik und Text: Martin Dühning)

Stars rising

Stars rise and sink in the high firmament.
If you watch them calmly at night,
You will find fleeting shooting stars
And poles of transquillity that hardly change
As the weeks and moons pass by.

You might want to choose
Your favorite one wisely.
The brightest stars are
Not always the most reliable.

And remember,
Even the great sun at noon
Is merely a tiny light
In the infinite cosmos.

* * *

True Life

Happiness lies in small things only,
In the silence of a rainy day,
When the big busy world
Stays as far away as possible.

What remains when the times pass
Is perhaps only this silence,
The silence of the instant –
And the calm of pausing,
When the dripping rain gently
Trickles from refreshed pines,
Small blue circles bounce
Across the garden pond.

Happiness lies in small things only,
In the silence of a rainy day,
When you remember a wind chime
That in pure fifths intones true life.

* * *

Über Martin Dühning 1526 Artikel
Martin Dühning, geb. 1975, studierte Germanistik, kath. Theologie und Geschichte in Freiburg im Breisgau sowie Informatik in Konstanz, arbeitet als Lehrkraft am Hochrhein-Gymnasium in Waldshut und ist Gründer, Herausgeber und Chefredakteur von Anastratin.de.