The Song of the Nibelungen

A subterranean people:

Nibelungs barbed like black pineforest,

guardians of gold and treasures,

from the mines of Nibelung-land,

sought and eventually taken by Siegfried.

Their caves in the form of a helix,

ramps that spiral higher than the ones in Wright’s building.

The Song of the Nibelungen, and the Lament.

The Song of the Nibelungen is the most ancient of all.

At night the wayworn Nibelungen are sumptuously lodged.

Teutonic metrical romances,

descended to us entire.

The tale of the Nibelungs, the story of Gudrun, survive in these churches.

Churches like the caves of the Nibelungs.

At Covent Garden--gods all white, Nibelungs black.

These are faiths for the front pages, for CNN, not for me…

It’s Prometheus and the Nibelungs, Indra and Cadmus, who bring me my kind of news.