Thank you, Rainer and Gerald!

From Gerald of Closed Cafeteria, his own translations of the Marienleben.

(Wouldn't a staged reading in the nave of St John's, , maybe Bob and Aline, maybe Margaret and Mary Ellen and Alyse too? , interspersed with Marian music be a corker? Hmmmmm... the Nieland Magnificat, maybe the wonderful calypso carol, the glorious 4th verse of the Christina Rosetti poem with Holst's glorious music, one the the SAVAE "restorations" or whatever they are, Zdravasbud, the Arcadelt, a psalm for Joseph to chant in Hebrew....)

http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/07/life-of-mary-das-marienleben.html

The Birth of Mary
O how hard it must have been for the angels
to not suddenly break into song, the way one breaks out crying,
because they knew: in this night the mother is born for the boy,
for the one soon to appear.

Flying they kept silent and showed the path
where, alone, the house of Joachim lay.
Oh, how they felt within themselves and within space pure thickening,
but no one was allowed below with him.

For, already the two were beside themselves
A neighbor came by, curious, unable to comprehend,
And the old man, carefully, went and silenced the mooing
of a dark cow; for things had never been like this.

The Presentation of Mary in the Temple
To understand what she was like then,
you have to imagine yourself in a place
in which columns affect you;
where you can retrace stairs
where arches full of danger
bridge the chasm of a space
that remained within you,
because it had been made, towering,
of such pieces that you can no longer
remove them from yourself lest you demolished yourself.
If you have reached that state, if everything within you
is stone, wall, ramp, view, curve, then try
to remove the big curtain in front of you
with both hands:it sparkles of very noble things
and surpasses your breath and touch.
Up, down, palace built upon palace,
Railings stream wider from within railings,
and surface above surface on such edges
that vertigo, as you can see, grasps you.
Clouds of incense diffuse what is close,
but still the most distant aims right
inside of you with its straight rays -
and now, when the glow from clear bowls
of flame plays on slowly approaching robes:how can you bear it?
She, however, came and raised her eyes
to view all this.
(A child, a little girl among women)
Then she ascended silently, filled with confidence,
towards the spoiled luxury which made way for her:
For that is how much everything that men built had
already been exceeded by the praise within her heart;
by the desire to give herself to the signs within her:
The parents wanted to lift her up,
the looming figure with the bejeweled chest
seemed to receive her:
But she passed through everyone,
small as she was, slipped from every hand
into her destiny, which, higher than the hall,
was ready, and heavier than the temple.

The Annunciation
Not that an angel entered (realize this),
scared her. Just as others would not startle
if a ray of sunlight or the moon at night
busied itself in the room, the form in which
an angel walked, did not scare her;
she barely had an idea that this stay was
difficult for angels. (O if we knew just how pure
she was. A doe once beheld her in the forest and
became so fond of her that within her was conceived
the unicorn, the animal from light, the pure animal)

It did not scare her that he entered,
but that he was so utterly present, the angel,
bearing a young man's face, and turned to her;
that his gaze and hers, looking up to him, collided
as if everything outside had become empty,
and everything that millions saw, did, wore
became condensed in them: only her and him;
Seeing and seen, nowhere else except in this very spot
- see, that scares, and both startled.
Then the angel sang his melody.

The Visitation of Mary
She still bore it easily in the beginning,
but ascending she sometimes already
was aware of her wondrous body,
and then she stood, breathing,
on the high mountains of Judea.
But not the land, her own fullness
was laid out around her;
walking she felt: one never transcends
the greatness she now felt.

She felt compelled to lay her hand
on the other body, further along than she was.
And the women dizzily approached one another,
touching clothes and hair.
Each one, filled by her sanctuary,
protected herself with her cousin.
O, the Savior within her was still a blossom,
but the Baptist in the cousin's womb
was already moved to leap for joy.

Joseph's Suspicion
And the angel spoke and made an effort
with the man clenching his fists:
But don't you see from every crease
That she is cool as God's morning.

But the other man looked at him, gloomy,
mumbling: what has changed her so ?
Then the angel cried: Carpenter! Do you
still not realize that this is the Lord's doing ?

When you make boards, in your pride,
do you really want to challenge the one
who humbly causes, from the same wood,
leaves to sprout and buds to swell ?

He understood. And when he lifted the gaze,
quite frightened, to the angel, he was gone.
He removed his thick cap slowly.
Then he sang praises.

GO READ THE REST! http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2007/07/life-of-mary-das-marienleben.html