Weird calm
Issue 1/1998 | Archives online, Fiction, poetry
A selection of poems, translated by Herbert Lomas and Anselm Hollo. Interview by Tarja Roinila
Agnosis IV
Set your altar up in the evening,
in the morning clear it away:
the wandering goes on. Don't persuade yourself
of anything, or anyone else:
fearful forces are epidemic,
no place is sacred
for long.
Again and again
the sacred
starts.
If you happen to be
there don't refuse to see.
(1989)
a light wind
stirring a treetop:
a shoal of fish
in blue abyss
From Hiidentyven (‘Weird calm’, Otava, 1984)
Against a pale glow
Against a pale glow
engraved in steely frost
an unwavering grey figuration
of black boughs.
I know nothing of a pine tree’s pinings.
My own are close enough,
but this morning no complaints.
Before my eyes a world. Bitter, beautiful.
From Hiidentyven
A vertical motion
evenly from the earth
up, upwards
skywards
against the sky
an explosion, a bursting counterthrust
across the skyline
a crossbough
spreading out
like wings
of wounding, a flight
into freedom
like
hands, arms:
opening
the breast receives
a sword
a ray
a grain
from the crossbough,
from its centre
the movement spreads everywhere:
the cotyledon,
the leafage and the ramage, the tip of the tree
the roots:
there's an image in the air.
The current of time
is running across the crossbough,
flowing through the foliage.
From Hiidentyven
– on spikelets of hay
near the forest edge
dragonfly wings were trembling
trembling
Back through the forest I make my way. Depth again – the forest, everything yesterday, today synchronic: each trunk distinct.
From Karu laidunrinne (‘Barren pasturage’, 1989)
Through the night
For Benjamin Britten
Through the midsummer night
quills of angel wings
are piercing wounds, hard
through the winkling of an eye passes
and endless
procession
From Karu laidunrinne
My dream, a brown beast, slipped away into the foliage,
and now, long moments later,
the day’s escaping, at a fast canter –
two lassoes I let fly, at a throw,
one at the disappearing horn of the dream,
one at the day on the run.
A chance in a hundred thousand
but think of the possible prize:
one loops a dream unicorn,
one loops a golden-homed elk of a day!
From Kaksoiskuva (‘Dual image’. 1982)
With unblinking eyes
I've
been in this house
before, yes,
but the birds
weren't able
to prevent
my entry!
In the doors
there were
grey mists,
the inner rooms
disappearing into the distance.
A bird, a large one, about
the size of a man
came to meet me
in the corridor,
pushed its head
into a stone slab
in the floor:
it wanted
to avoid seeing
the infinity of the particles.
It twitched its head out
when it saw
a shadow nearing
across the slabs, fluttered
in front of me,
spreading its downy wings:
blood was pouring from its eyes.
It stopped before me,
and looked,
running with blood, eyes
bleeding, stood
and spread its bloodstained downy wings.
I raised my hand, yelled:
'Bird! You won't stop me!
The passage through these rooms
has to go on
into the distance.
Go and crucify yourself!
The burden I'm carrying is different.
In these empty rooms
I'm carrying
the weight
of these empty rooms
into the distance, to eternity.
The pillars are burdening my shoulders,
the dance is burdening my feet.
The earth's opening, the mist's
coming down. Stand aside!' A shrieking
engulfed the room:
the bird flew at me. I walked
through it, the pillar
crumbled, pain burst out and
with unblinking eyes
I stared
into the abyss:
in the stairwell, where
a dark emptiness was yawning and
stony, greedy
spirits of judgement
were blowing a stone horn,
spreading my bleeding wings
among a forest of pillars
under a stony sky
I was flying.
From Portaikko pilvissä (‘Staircase in the clouds’, 1992)
Translated by Herbert Lomas
On the way home
On the way home
the scent of a limetree,
honeyed.
Warm July night,
darkening toward August.
I can’t help
the moth entranced by light,
the person entranced by darkness.
Yearning for light you turn into a cinder.
On the way home
each one of us flies in her orbit
on a warm July night
calm, the stars not yet out
as the limetree spreads
its scent, the honeyed limetree.
From Hengitys yössä (Breathing in the night’, 1995)
Above and through everything
Above and through everything
the thin web of life. On an evening like this,
its strands
are stretched to breaking
under the moments’ significance, the light’s
weight. So much empty space,
so much lovely desolation
freed from significance
in us, in the world,
it makes you grow faint.
And here, all dreams have to be dreamed by oneself!
When I am dead, a stone
will dream my dreams.
From Hengitys yössä
Translated by Anselm Hollo
Tags: poetry
No comments for this entry yet