LINES TO DR.WALTER BIRK ON HIS RETIRING FROM GENERAL PRACTICE 

   When you first arrived in Kirchstetten,trains had
   long been taken f9or granted,but electric
   light was still a surprise and as yet no one
     had seen a tractor.

   To-day,after forty-five years,as you leave us,
   autobahns are a must,mid-wives are banished
   and village doctors become museum pievces
     like the horse-and-buggy.

   I regret. The specialist has his function
   but,to him,we are merely banal examples of
   what he knows all about. The healer I faith is
     someone I've gossiped

   and drunk with before I call him to touch me,
   one who admits how easy it is to misconster (miskonstruieren)
   what our bodies are trying to say,for each one
     talks in a local

   dialect of its own which can alyter during
   its life-time: so children run high fevers on
   slight provocation,whlile the organs of old men
     suffer in silence.

   When summer plumps again,our usual sparrows
   will phip (onomatopäisch) in the eaves of the patulous chesnuts
   near your old home,but none will ask -"Is Doctor
     Birk around to hear me?" -,

   for nothing can happen to birds that has not
   happened before: we though are beasts with a sense of
   []real occasion,of beginnings and endings,
     which is the reason

   we like te keep our clocks punctual,as Nature's
   never is. Seasons She has but no Calendar,'
   forthus every year the strawberries ripen
     andand the autumn crocus

   burstsflares into blossom on unpredictable
   dates. But sSuch a Schlamperei cannot be allowed an
   historian: for us it's a matter of honor
     to keep our birth-days

   and wedding-days,to rejoice or to mourn,on
   the right one. Henceforth the First of October
    shall be special for you and us,as the once when
     you quit the Public

   Realm to private your ways and snudge (sich einnisten) in a quiet
   you so dsereserve. Farewell,and do not wince at
   our sick werld: it is genuine tin age to be
     happily selfish.

                     _____