Photo: Jürgen Bauer
Dragonfly
a version
She’s given to me, the dragonfly,
a quiet comma in the air, she hovers
as the grasslight blows into her eyes,
still, as if holding to a single point.
Because the movements weren’t hers?
Because nothing tells her what comes next?
Because whatever comes isn’t ours—
her wings are full, full of the invisible?
Now a tremolo, she’s herself alone,
a floating precious stone, unknowable.
A blue light encloses her from within.
I see her luster—it looks back at me.
Her limbs & segments, like a string of pearls,
in her shimmer is summer, summer again!
— translated from the German by Joshua Weiner
CHRISTIAN LEHNERT, born in Dresden in 1969, studied theology, religious studies, and Middle Eastern studies in Leipzig, Berlin, and Jerusalem. He then worked as a pastor near Dresden. He has been head of the Department for Liturgy Studies of the United Protestant-Lutheran Church of Germany at the University of Leipzig since 2012. He is a member of Saxony’s Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy for Sciences and Literature in Mainz.
About the Translator:
JOSHUA WEINER is the author of three books of poetry (all from Chicago) and a book of political/cultural reportage, Berlin Notebook: Where Are the Refugees? (LARB, 2016). His translation of Nelly Sachs’s Flight & Metamorphosis, published by Farrar Straus Giroux, was shortlisted for ALTA’s 2023 National Translation Award. His translation(with Jay Hopler) of Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Book of Pilgrimage’ was chosen by Arthur Sze for Best Literary Translations 2026 (Deep Vellum). A recipient of Whiting, Guggenheim, and Rome Prize fellowships, he lives in Washington D.C. and teaches at the University of Maryland.
Read more by Christian Lehnert
Author page
Joshua Weiner Reviews Christian Lehnert’s Wickerwork in Fence
Buy Wickerwork from Archipelago Books