A Prost to Our Roots
Norbert Krapf
When we came here, we were full of dreams and did not let
reality kill them. We buried too soon too many of our young and
elders but kept working, clearing, planting, praying in German. If
our prayers were in German, our ambition was American: good
land, a house we built with our hands of timber we cut down with
an axe, crops in fields we cleared and plowed, cattle in barns. A
church we built of Indiana sandstone pulled on sleds by oxen from
a farm beside the Patoka River, near the bridge and the mill we
took over built by Scots-Irish Presbyterian. Some of them moved
on when we came in. The Croatian missionary Rev. Kundek, who
spoke our native language, but not so well as us, sold us
government land, looked after our needs, marched like a general at
the head of our parades, built our court house, advised us how to
vote and do business to stay together as a small German Catholic
colony. The Benedictines from Einsiedeln, Switzerland took over
for the Little General when he died. We built factories in which we
made chairs, desks, fine cabinets, organs and pianos. The love of
music has always been with us, even when shade from the
forest still flooded in through our windows and open cabin doors
Now we still have brick houses, straight streets, vegetables
growing in gardens, flowers blooming in beds surrounding our
houses and in boxes hanging on the railings of the concrete bridge
over the Patoka. Our Strassenfest celebrates our heritage in red,
gold, and black and polkas in the summer. The church bells in our
landmark Romanesque church with the Tower of London still peal
and toll in the center of town. Basketball hoops hang from every
garage. We keep our cemeteries well cut and trimmed and care for
our ancestors’ tombstones carved in German script with the names
of the Bavarian and Baden towns they came from and wanted us to
remember. We know where we came from but love it here where
we stayed. Some of our young have learned how to speak the old
tongue that was verboten during two world wars, and we have a
sister city in southern Germany, a little town from which some of
our ancestors came. We go there, they come here. Our taverns
serve frosted schooners of beer that go down easy in the summer
and we like our schnapps in the winter. A Prost to our roots all
these years later!
—To appear in Indiana Bicentennial Book, published by the
Indiana Bicentennial Commission fall 2015.
The Horseradish Man
Eddie and I
were playing
pitch & catch
in the vacant lot
& Susie & Sarah
were jumping rope
on the sidewalk
next to Mary Lou
& cousin Marlene
who were skipping
at hopskotch
& it was May
& old man Mehringer
was cutting his grass
with his push mower
& his Mrs. was
pinning up white wash
on the clothesline
when a man from
another neighborhood
rolled his Chevy
up to the curb
hobbled to the back
of the car
& opened his trunk.
We all stopped
what we were doing
& stared until
somebody yelled
from a front porch
“The horseradish man!”
Moms & dads
came rushing
from every direction
the Schroeders & Schuchs
from Dewey Street
the Kieffners & Kreileins
from Vine
the Kleins & the Kueblers
from East 15th.
The line formed
at the trunk
& stretched
around the corner
& it was spring
& the gates
to horseradish heaven
had sprung wide open!
from Bloodroot: Indiana Poems
(IU Pr., 2008) ©Norbert Krapf
The Sound of the Old Bells
Norbert Krapf
We pray in a new church so small it would seem God barely fits
into it. Rarely hear a priest say mass in a language that speaks to
us. In the day we cut down trees and at night we dream we are
back in forests we remember or rivers whose currents and bends
we know. We recall the clang and pitch of the old church bells we
left behind. People whose names are the same as ours we mostly
left behind, but many of us have transplanted our language into the
dark loam of the new soil. This earth we must learn. May our
children bury us well.
—American Dreams: Reveries and Revisitations
(Mongrel Empire Press, 2013). © Norbert Krapf.
Winter Sky
Joyce Brinkman, Gabriele Glang, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda
December sky spits.
Shooting stars speed over earth.
Words traverse the sea.
A snow-globe blizzard swirls—ah!—
syllables settle: two lines.
Up they whirl—eddies
of flakes lit-up like fireflies:
Christmas on the Bay.
Epiphany’s constellations
portend a coming sea change.
Three strangers appear.
Shadows in missing moonlight.
Winter rabbits feed.
Crows converge invisibly,
maudlin above bare larch woods.
A tremulous wail:
an owl’s screech burrows through night—
those golden eyes masked.
My thorny longings scuffle—
panic in the underbrush!
Devotion holds strong.
Red-tailed hawk chooses his feast.
Doves separated.
Raptor’s aching hunger reigns:
ah!—love’s trail of breadcrumbs ends—
A buoyant swoosh! Two
bald eagles stir dawn’s shrill glow:
river guardians.
Winterhimmel
(Winter Sky)
Translated by Gabriele Glang
Dezemberhimmel spuckt.
Sternschnuppen eilen über Erde.
Worte kreuzen das Meer.
Schneekugelsturm wirbelt—ah!—
Silben legen sich: zwei Zeilen.
Flockenwirbel strudeln
aufwärts—ein Glühwurmleuchten:
Die Bucht weihnachtet.
Rauhnächtliche Sternbilder
verkünden Veränderung.
Drei Fremde tauchen auf.
Schatten in vermisstem Mondschein.
Winterhasen fressen.
Unsichtbar versammeln sich Krähen,
über nackten Lärchen klagend.
Furchtsames Klagen:
Eulenschrei durchbohrt die Nacht—
Goldaugen maskiert.
Mein stacheliges Sehnen
im Zwist—Panik im Gestrüpp!
Ergebenheit fesselt.
Rotschwanzbussard wählt sein Mahl.
Tauben trennten sich.
Greifvogels Hunger herrscht: ah!—
Brotkrumenliebesspur reißt ab—
Schwungvolles Sausen! Zwei
Adler schüren schrille Morgenglut—
Wächter des Flusses.
Excerpt from Seasons of Sharing A Kasen Renku Collaboration
Published 2014, Leapfrog Press
Zurich Bahnhof
Joyce Brinkman
Gargoyles, and angel above.
Sounds of French, German, English
below blend, as polished shoes scurry
through Zurich’s grey cavern
of trains.
Young Arabian, Swedish, Chinese
bear suitcases, sunflowers and tots.
Lead small Silkies, brown Pugs,
black Shepherds. Check cell
phones for weather ahead,
sporting Prada, Armani, and smells
of Channel.
Cherry kucken, rye brot, lamb kabobs,
beer, pretzels with mustard and kraut
lure the hurried to linger; to part
with bills and gold coins from
full pockets.
In the midst of the main station floor
grey bearded and dirty he stands
in dusty brown sandals, black socks,
unheeding the food vendor’s calls.
With no gold
to pull from his pockets
he feeds the pigeons
stale bread.