One of my favourite writers since my childhood days is Erich Kästner. I remember reading what’s perhaps his most iconic piece of work, Emil and the Detectives, numerous times when I was growing up. Each time, I would be fascinated by the train journey that Emil bravely undertook on his own and longed to one day do the same.
And when I had the chance to watch a play of Dot and Anton in the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg more than a decade ago, I jumped at it immediately, even though the theatre was rightfully filled with school kids and my German language skills were a little rough on the edges then.
Over the years, as my German improved, I came to appreciate Kästner’s poems untranslated. My favourites form a collection called “Die dreizehn Monate” (The 13 Months), in which Kästner wrote a poem about each month in the calendar plus a fictional month. And since we found ourselves in the month of January, I thought I’d share “Der Januar” poem here and its beautiful musical recital below.
The mood of the month in the poem is a little sombre and suitably so, but I also find it full of hope and possibilities thanks to the line “Das Jahr ist klein und liegt noch in der Wiege” (the year is small and still in the cradle), which repeats itself several times in the poem. It might be grey out there but the days are slowly getting longer and, at least recently, warmer. So let’s get off that couch, put on our shoes, and let our feet carry us through the fresh air. The year is still a baby and we have more than 300 days left to nurture it, to help it be the best it can be.
