Scandinavian poetry, part eight.

I am so facinated by all the insects and small animals there is to be found around us,
this little one took a rest on my veranda floor some days back. He reminds me of a King wearing his long soft velvet cape! A while back i read the book The sound of a wild snail eating and in summer The book of bees, it is such a facinating thing to learn more about the worlds of these tiny creatures...

A poem
by the norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994)

Green light

Creatures that rustle in the shadows, all the crooked
deformed ones in the world, with tiny feet and far too many eyes,
can hide in the grass- that's why its there,
silent and full of moonlight among the continents.

I have lived in the grass among the small ones that resemble broken twigs.
From their towers of cowslip the bumblebees came like bells
into my heart with words of magic order.
The wind took my poem and spread it out like dust.

I have lived in the grass with the Earth and i have heard it breath-
like an animal that has walked a long way and is thirsting for the water holes
and i felt it lie down heavily on its side in the evening like a buffalo,
in the darkness between the stars, where there is room.

The dance of the winds and the great wildfires in the grass i remember often;
-the shadow play of smiles on a face that always shows forgiveness.
But why it has such great patience with us deep down in its iron core,
its huge magnesium heart, we are far from understanding.

For we have forgotten this; that the Earth is a star of grass,
a seed-planet, swirling with spores as with cloudes from sea to sea,
a whirl of them. Seeds take hold under the cobblestones
and between the letters in my poem, here they are.

Translated by Roger Greenwald.
From North in the world: Selected poems of Rolf Jacobsen.
 

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Scandinavian poetry, part seven

Cobalt
by Rolf Jacobsen

Colors are words’ little sisters. They can’t become soldiers.
I’ve loved them secretly for a long time.
They have to stay home and hang up the sheer curtains
of our familiar kitchen, bedroom and den.

I’m very close to young Crimson, and brown Sienna
but even closer to thoughtful Cobalt with her distant eyes and
     untrampled spirit.
We walk in dew.
The night sky and the southern oceans
are her possessions
and a tear-shaped pendant on her forehead:
the pearls of Cassiopeia.
We walk in dew on late nights.

But the others.
Meet them on a June morning at four o’clock
when they come rushing toward you,
on your way to a morning swim in the green cove’s spray.
Then you can sunbathe with them on the smooth rocks.
     -Which one will you make yours?

Translated by Roger Greenwald.
From North in the world: Selected poems of Rolf Jacobsen.

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Scandinavian poetry, part six

photo by saara

The Silence Afterwards

by Rolf Jacobsen.

translated by Robert Bly.

 

Try to be done now
with deliberately provocative actions and sales statistics,
brunches and gas ovens,
be done with fashion shows and horoscopes,
military parades, architectural contests, and the rows of triple traffic lights.
Come through all that and be through
with getting ready for parties and eight possibilities
of winning on the numbers,
cost of living indexes and stock market analyses,
because it is too late,
it is way too late,
get through with and come home
to the silence afterwards
that meets you like warm blood hitting your forehead
and like thunder on the way
and the sound of great clocks striking
that make the eardrums quiver,
because words don't exist any longer,
there are no more words,
from now on all talk will take place
with the voices stones and trees have.

The silence that lives in the grass
on the underside of every blade
and in the blue spaces between the stones.
The silence
that follows shots and birdsong.
The silence
that pulls a blanket over the dead body
and waits in the stairs until everyone is gone.
The silence
that lies like a small bird between your hands,
the only friend you have.

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Scandinavian poetry, part five

-photo by saara

A beautiful poem
by the norwegian author and painter Stein Mehren (born 1935)


I hold your head
 
I hold your head
in my hands, as you hold
my heart in your affection
as everything holds and is
held by something other than itself
As the sea lifts a stone
to its strands, as the tree
holds the ripe fruit of autumn, as
the world is lifted through worlds and space
So are we both held by something and lifted
to where mystery holds mystery in its hand
 
From MOT EN VERDEN AV LYS, 1963.
Translation is by Elizabeth Rokka.

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Scandinavian poetry, part four

-photo by saara

 Some of my favourite poems by the Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994)

Just delicate needles

It’s so delicate, the light.
And there’s so little of it. The dark
is huge.
Just delicate needles, the light,
in an endless night.
And it has such a long way to go
through such desolate space.
So let’s be gentle with it.
Cherish it.
So it will come again in the morning.
We hope.


*****
  
Look 

The moon thumbs through the book of the night.
Finds a lake on which nothing’s printed.
Draws a straight line. That’s all it can do.
That’s enough.
A thick line. Right to you.
Look!


*****

Sunflower

What sower walked over earth,
which hands sowed
our inward seeds of fire?
They went out from his fists like rainbow curves
to frozen earth, young loam, hot sand,
they will sleep there
greedily, and drink up our lives
and explode it into pieces
for the sake of a sunflower that you haven’t seen
or a thistle head or a chrysanthemum.

Let the young rain of tears come.
Let the calm hands of grief come.
It’s not as evil as you think.

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Scadinavian poetry, part three

Scandinavian poetry is sadly not often translated into english but luckely one of my favourites are:
the swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. Tranströmer is considered to be one of the most influential Scandinavian poets of recent decades and was awareded with the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Some days back i came across this film by the British director Martin Earle illustrating excerpts of Tranströmer's poem "Schubertiana", enjoy.

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scandinavian poetry, part two

Romanesque Arches
by Tomas Tranströmer

Inside the huge romanesque church the tourists jostled in the half darkness.
Vault gaped behind vault, no complete view.
A few candle-flames flickered.
An angel with no face embraced me
and whispered through my whole body:
'Don't be ashamed of being human, be proud!
Inside you vault opens behind vault endlessly.
You will never be complete, that's how it's meant to be.'
Blind with tears.
I was pushed out on the sun-seething piazza
together with Mr and Mrs Jones, Mr Tanaka and Signora Sabatini
and inside them all vault opened behind vault endlessly.

photosource

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scandinavian poetry, part one

When They Sleep
by Rolf Jacobsen
(1907 - 1994)
Original language Norwegian
English version Robert Hedin

All people are children when they sleep.
there's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
-- God, teach us the language of sleep.

photosource

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