the sleeping apple

 

 

Robert Reinick's poem translated and recreated by Ruth Salles

Drawing by Valentina de AA student at Waldorf School Rudolf Steiner.
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Beautiful apple on the apple tree,
with a red cheek,
made his bed in the green rama
and, swinging, it packs itself.
Up there, coming and going,
It is clear that he is already sleeping.

A child, at that time,
down there, he asks:
“Come, little apple, fall down now
and then go to sleep!

And asks that asks, and calls and calls,
and who said she fell?
Didn't even move in the green rama
and in her sleep she even smiled.

So in the sky, the sun passing by
was listening to the sad complaint:
“O beautiful sun, dear sun,
make that apple move!”

"Yes, may I help!" - and as it passes
a ray of yours comes down from the sky,
lightly kiss the rosy face,
but the apple did not move.

In this, a bird flies from the nest
and comes to land very close by.
“Sing, sing, my little bird.
So maybe the apple wakes up.”

The beautiful bird trains the throat,
release your song with all your breath,
but the apple, as it sings,
falls into a more drowsy sleep.

Who passes now and flies?
Why, it is the wind, which comes suddenly,
who neither kisses nor sings with grace,
but that blows in a different tone:

he puts his hands on his hips
and your cheeks are already swollen,
and it blows so much from the heights
the apple wakes up scared.

And in the child's hands it jumps
right at that exact moment.
And the child thanks aloud:
“Thank you so much, Mister Wind!”

 

See the version of this poem for the theater.

 

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