Was auf der rechten Seite stehe? Ach, wissen Sie, da bin ich bloß zum und über den "Fluchtpunkt" hergezogen.

Naja, Sie wissen schon. Darstellende Geometrie. Der Punkt an dem sich parallele Linien vereinen. Und wenn diese parallelen Linien auch horizontal sind, dann reihen sich ihre Fluchtpunkte in der Linie des Horizonts auf. Alles klar?

So ist das, aber nicht immer.

Zum Beispiel gibt es (briefmarkanterweise) keinen Fluchtpunkt in der Stadt, in der Dr. Ehrentraut Helmberg-Lanner viele Jahre verbrachte:

Dr. Helmberg was a bacteriologist who had worked at the universities of Innsbruck and Leipzig. That she, of all people, should come up with a concept like this - New Age plus Old Age, if you ask me - is most remarkable.

And, no, I do not know the point to which the axes all are fleeing. Was it Meister Eckhart's Pünktchen - the "tiny dot" without dimension that the meditating monk strives for and, having reached it, experiences the bliss of non-duality, direct perception, God, whatever - was it that "Punkt" that inspired her?

I am a scientist, not a mystic, and I am barely able to spout a few glib phrases about the latter. So, science to the rescue: my translation reminded me also of what is called in geometry (a much easier discipline for an old prof of chemistry like me!) the Fluchtpunkt, literally "flight point". That's the imaginary point in a perspective drawing whence parallels flee, to be united in infinity...

Or was it the point of Archimedes of which the great Eureka! man said, "Give me one spot to stand on and I will move the earth"? Or was it that tiniest of dots, that quantum mechanical singularity, much smaller than the nucleus of an atom, out of which all our universe grew? But, no, that was another time. And theoretical physics to boot. Better stick to the practical poem:

A chemistry prof is honour-bound to tell it like it is. Dr. Helmberg's distant "Punkt" was really one, as she said, "around which all our axes revolve". But, you see, I needed a rhyme for that spot (to be redeemed later, if necessary, by a couple of rationalizing comments, or so I reckoned) - and hence I fidgeted and fled right to the imaginary Fluchtpunkt, where poem and translation are united in eternity...

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! Plus, having thus entered the confessional, I shall admit to something else. I was of two minds translating the last sentence. Two minds, two translations. I finally sided with my stranger ego (right side of the brain). Camus and all that. Or, if you prefer, "Fremd bin ich eingezogen, fremd zieh ich wieder aus." Madam Editor - unaware of my first rendition - sided with my earlier alien ego (the one that likes to watch StarTrek, mostly on the left side of the brain) and suggested, well, you know what. She was fighting the devil with beelzebub, unbeknownst. But I, how do I defend myself against myself? It was alien, downright strange. Downright Winterreise.

What's does that have to do with the poem, you ask? Well, was "funkt" just a rhyme for "Punkt" - or was it the prime directive? The word "funkt" is jarring to current ears, which makes me think it may have been intended to jar. But, then, this poem was likely written in the late thirties or early forties - a difficult and confused time for the world in general and for Austrians in particular, with me barely out of my diapers - and "funken" had a very different meaning then, factually and emotionally. In colloquial language, for instance, it meant that something was functioning. And as a noun it meant a spark - perhaps the one of the Gods. And still does. But funken was also, and primarily so, what state propaganda did on the radio, what soldiers did in the field, and what the BBC did across the Channel (highly dangerous to listen to, by the way!): the transmission of electromagnetic radiation to send a message. See the problem?

You are sick and tired of my excuses; you want to DIY? Be my guest. I'll even help you. Here is my original phrasing, fully rhymed and ready for substituting the last line above:

naught but a message that an alien sends.