Kaspar Hauser's Dream

Dragged from his death-womb
into day's throbbing whiteness …
Kaspar blinks, hobbles, staggers,
learns to balance in air;
the world in all its broken
loveliness now enters his dream.
On a hill swathed by sea winds
he rests, cradled by blue cave-sky.
The cloaked stranger keeps watch,
plots blood. Later, squatting
innocent in the outhouse,
Kaspar will suffer his spiteful slash.
Till then, a brief lifetime
of pure wonder, pure pain.
Swans, lily-delicate, silver
the dusk; flower clocks nod
beneath a glade of honey bees …
His benefactor blinks kindly
at Kaspar's loneliness, offers
an infinity of lawns to soothe
the unaccustomed mind. At night,
the salon: a child-man's wit
shames learned men, Society
hides behind its fan … When
a mad musician plays brokenly
on a piano, Kaspar's heart leaps
to express such wild being.
He sits silent in the herb garden,
shadow across a sundial …
The death-wound: dream colours
flower from ancient light.
Kaspar's staring child's face
grave above the white coverlet.
In a circle, friends and small children
wait, patient as animals. He dreams …
Strange flickering lights.
People climbing a hill —
rivers of them, slow and joyful,
moving like blown leaves in autumn.
Lilting music. A luminous stillness.
Kaspar dies, becoming his dream.