Knut Ødegård - poem in English translation

What is secret is slow in moving

The old bicycles stand in basements

deep in dank darkness

and in the attic: covered by a thin coating

of dry light dust. Cycles with wheels stiffened

in the final turn taken before being deserted,

abandoned to mummifying or dissolving

in wet rust: The secret, the slow decomposition.

The spokes, bulging out from the hub, invisible

in swift motion at top speed. At nights: the dynamo

thumbed over onto the tough rubber, the irregular light

flickering for the road.

A fine tracery of thin spider’s web covers the spokes,

the rubber swollen out in dark scars under the thin

gluey strands: Small dry wings are stuck fast,

it is difficult to catch sight of the black insect.

I sit with a photograph of my father. He has just got off

the bicycle which he props up close to his body:

His fingers grip the handlebars.