Two After Caspar David Friedrich, by ​Michael Gessner

Wanderer above a Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich (Germany) c. 1818

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog
  
The solitary man, back to the world,
a Rücksfigur in Romantic stance,
in his green-black frock mourning coat,
against a slender cane, a walking stick,
above the fog of empires,
the sun obscured by enigma,
the total thing to ask, what was
ever here but loneliness and longing
in the sum of a single mood, a soul’s speech.
 
**
 
A Line From Goethe
 
In another epoch, the fog lifted
for a moment or for ten, unclothing
the Romantic spring mallow, the blue mallow,
blue like the buttonhole flower
in the felt lapel of Novalis or Mann,
among gold mallow and blood mallow
now in this morning for a moment
or for ten, O Goethe,
Ich habe dein hertz!

​Michael Gessner

Michael Gessner has authored 14 books of poetry and prose. His work has been included in American Letters & Commentary, American Literary Review, The French Literary Review, Journal of the American Medical Society, Kenyon Review, North American Review, Oxford Review (UK,) Pacific Review, Sycamore Review, The Yale Journal of Humanities and others. He is a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle.