Nehaveigur

One of my favorite things when I’m out backpacking or canoeing is to take an afternoon nap under a tree somewhere. Karl Heinrich Waggerl wrote about this experience in his Wagrainer Tagebuch (Wagrain diaries). Waggerl was an Austrian writer who is so unknown in the English-speaking world he only has a German Wikipedia entry. His genre and even his style is similar to that of another Austrian writer, Peter Rosegger. This is a translation by ChatGPT, with some editing for readability:

After the meal, sleep overtakes both of us, as I’m sure you’ll understand, we have plenty to catch up on. Each of us shapes a suitable hollow in the underbrush, we pull our hats down over our faces, and, with a final sigh of comfort, bid farewell to the world.

I lie on my back, deeply submerged in the herbal forest, surrounded only by a tangle of green leaves, and just above, the sky, which I hold outstretched between my hands. Occasionally, a beetle staggers drunkenly through the blue expanse, a few mottled butterflies whirl past in their blissful dance of love, and whenever a gentle breeze moves from the shadowy side across the clearing, a mighty chorus of bees rises loudly humming from the blackberry bushes. But always, there is the rustling of swaying treetops, this deep and rich sound, calm and steadily flowing, which never completely fades away, and which I carry within my ears always, even in foreign lands, whenever silence surrounds me.

Karl Heinrich Waggerl: Wagrain Diaries