Poem by the Norwegian writer Jan Erik Vold

 

Pine cone song

Who’d like to hear

pine cone song? Yes for pine cone song

is a song for the other race

of things, the friendly small, often disregarded

people and things, maligned

unmentioned, a small ineffectual blow for the bike-repair men

milkmaids single socks

small screws, the unsuccessful

sex and all the country’s pine cones scattered around

in the grass, yes – for I like pine cones,

I like pine cones better

than fir cones, fir cones are smooth and hang there,

streamlined, they remind you of

heavy things, things that will fall, genitals and

smooth administration, pine cones

remind you of bark boats, fishing floats and small

genitals, like those of old

men – or after a quick dip, pine cones’ somewhat sprawly scales

lie like roof-tiles on old houses where people

have lived a long time and don’t intend to lay a new

roof, not in their lifetime, scanty

fishermen’s huts, wrinkles round eyes that have seen much

but stayed alive, I like bark on trees, its lack

of pattern, flagpoles that are not

freshly painted, bus shelters

where loving couples have carved their names, these hearts

with plus signs in it and the simplest

addition, ours had been erased

last time I looked (but am no longer

quite sure on which tree

it actually was), I didn’t use a knife only red

pencil and that won’t last

very long, no, I like

winding gravel paths that might be dead-ends, gardeners

with simple faces as one passes

their vegetable plots, dandelions – and the dandelion

when it’s become a white puff-ball to be blown empty of

parachute troops as we called it, Harald Sverdrup

has written a fine poem

about the dandelion, I like

Harald Sverdrup, he’s got such a fine head, once

I asked if I could touch it, had wanted to

for a long time, and was told

I could, only Tarjei

can rival that skull (I’ve never

dared ask), yes, I like

old tyres in fields and cartwheels leaning

against roadside poles, so many strange things there are

in the world, there are days when it’s not far-fetched

to think of the world as an old

attic, with mahogany boxes containing counter-games no one

knows the rules of any more, with small keys on ribbons

next to them, or the keys lost and the lock

broken open, postcards

with the best Christmas and New Year greetings

from the turn of the century and old love-letters

and evidence, now they’ve moved, all of them, Agnes

and so on, moved into their own houses and shut the door

carefully after them, you should never

keep old letters, people say, I say Agree

or Disagree, if they’re gone well they’re gone, but if they’re there,

well, then they’re there, with their era and their language, that too

is reality, throw them away or keep them – what’s the difference?

it’s nicer to go around with less past, you say – yes! and

less past means fewer images, I say – yes, indeed! and fewer images

is a bit less exciting

in the long run, so

there you are, consider the rose

how beautiful it is when it stands there with pearls of rain

on its rose-red petals, they’re just outside the window, now

the sun’s shining but the rose in rain

is most beautiful, the rose just after

rain, then you can unfold them layer by layer, no one will stop you

doing that, and every petal is moist, right down

to the yellow farthest in, but not

exactly like that today, for today the rose is pale and dry

and past flowering, the yellow in there’s

a crater now, a dresden, the petals round it

have been shed most of them, you can see the whole world

in the gleam of a rose-petal if you place

your eye close enough, it’s no more difficult

than that, and at night

the white clover stands gleaming like planets

in the dark grass and during the day we go barefoot and find

pine cones, I found this pine cone

I brought in with me. It is so light, so

small, so helplessly

weightless, each scale lights up like quite happy faces

at a smallish workplace where there’s a cosy

atmosphere, a country knitwear shop, a capital-city

small-prints office – yes! the poet

has found yet another argument

for the pine cone (as against the fir cone) (if this is

the right place for arguments): With pine cones

there’s no cone-war – for although cone-wars

were great fun once, I don’t really know

if I think the same today, not for me – no matter the slogans

and arguments (yes, no matter if I accidentally

should have weighed in too heavily

against the fir cone, it has a perfect right to be there

too, to have its own life, it’s better to have cones

in fir trees that fir trees without cones – sure

sure but even so), I know

there’s something about pine cones

that fir cones will never have. I see it more clearly

year by year. Therefore this pine cone

on my table. Yes.