Ode to the Rhine

The shine of the lanterns lined up on your right side
Is not devoured but reflected to repel the night.
Your depths do not swallow but mirror it for them
Like a path through the darkness to light your waves.

Consequently you follow but your own set path
Which you carved to the mountains and hills all abroad.
Your water is there, carried forth the next moment
Yet your soul remains where it once touched upon.

Pastures and valleys, human culture in stone
Our shining cities, our very lives
Would be worthless and dull, empty and void
Did your endless beauty not flow through them all.

Ripples form on your surface, like the fairies' dance
And your lapping soothes, like a lover's touch
Any ears which they pass, and which rest to indulge
In their calming whisper, so close to one's heart.

How hard do you make it for a longing mind
To not seek your embrace, to not become one
With your incessant flow, to not long for peace
In your fatherly arms which engulf this land.

To live at the Rhine is a greatest of joys.

The weather is nothing short of being endlessly wonderful. After my maths exam I was about to head home but instead decided to head for the park again. When I first came there, a tiny rest of mist was still around, and on the other end I saw a tree throw its shadow onto the fog - Below a diagonal line the pale air was darker. It looked most charming. The sky was the purest kind of blue, no single cloud tainted it but the remainders of the morning's mist which still rested in the valleys between the hills and mountains on the other side of the Rhine. To one summit clung a single cloud hiding the Schloss on top of it, but it started to fade away into the clear heavens. It was cold and fresh, about 12°C, but the sun's bright light warmed my skin so gently and deeply when it fell upon it while it reflected in the deeply blue waters of the river, shimmering like diamonds that could not be found in the night sky. And after I took off my cap after a long time of being amazed by the rich valley's beauty and losing myself in the rough and yet so elegant iron forms of vessels sailing upstream almost gliding over the Rhine's surface and looked into the endless sky, I was surprised to still see the moon as well, facing the sun as though they were not rivals but brother and sister, half merged with the light but full blue of the tent spanning over this world and equally a wonderfully integrated part of it as it was a gem of a highlight in its vastness. I felt so vital and alive, yes indeed happy even. O what invaluable blessing it is to be born a Rhinelander and to still rest in the garden Eden he carved into the land.

A brilliant moonrise.

Today I saw the moon rise. It was spectacular. The whole sky was pitch black, no single star was visible and the silhouettes of the mountains too had merged with the endless darkness. But then the almost dirtily yellow round form of the moon emerged from between two layers of clouds. It shown upon their shapes, and it seemed as though together they formed a painting that had been pasted onto the vast empty canvas. The horizontally parallel clouds with their illuminated outlines seemed to serve as a frame for the moon as it slowly rose up from behind the lower one. Within but two minutes, it had already hidden behind the heavenly mist again, leaving behind its thick yellow light that stuck to the hole between the clouds as the sole thing breaking up the sky's monotony.
This repeated a few times. with the moon again and again immersing into a higher layer of clouds to briefly surface again a bit further away from the horizon, seemingly being cleansed of its dirt with every bath in the vaporised waters, since its shine grew colder but purer, increasingly white with every time it briefly returned into the realm of visibility.

I attempted to take photos, but they all turned out too blurry...

Sunset in Renesse

I am currently on vacation in the Netherlands (and need to remember to write an entry about my trip to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Poland once I return...), and yesterday evening I witnessed a beautiful and highly impressive sunset.
In the end it turned out to be of little worth, but here I shall post it nonetheless...

When I came to the beach passing the dunes with their blazing weeds and its desert sand, the sun was a blinding white sphere, but over the time it shrunk down or refined itself into an amazing golden globe, as round and bright as even possible.



Its shining shadow extended down into the ocean and lit the deep blue waves that filled the air with the sound of their continuous motion.
Further down, where the water having exhausted its rush slid swiftly along the slippery sand in gentle advances followed by similarly light retreats, the blinding shine scattered into many sparkles until where the sea had already wetted the soil and left its mark in it it was again reflected by the thin layer of moisture that laid upon the sand.

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Was für ein fantastischer Abendspaziergang!

Gerade kam ich zurück von einem Spaziergang in der Dämmerung, und oh wie unglaublich schön er war.

Im Osten hingen riesige, dunkelgraue Wolken über dem finsteren blauen Himmel, aber als ich zum Rhein hinunterkam und sich das Tal mir öffnete stockte mir der Atem, so schön war was ich sah!
Der Himmel, nach Westen hin, wurde heller und röter und der goldene Schatten der untergegangenen Sonne stand immer noch hinter den tiefschwarzen Silhouetten der Berge, durchbrochen von geisterhaften, dünnen Wolken die mit dem flammenden Rot kontrastierten.
Und der Rhein war getönt in einem Misch aus Orange, sanftem Blau und Grau, hier und dort durchzogen von den warm-gelben Lichtern am anderen Ufer, die aus dem Schwarz der Stadt hervorragten.
Dazu hörte man nichts als das leise Zischen weit entfernter Autos, das im Tal wiederhallte, und das sanfte Rauschen der Blätter die sich leicht im Winde wogen.

Das einzige, was diese Momente unsterblich gemacht hätte, wäre...