Another Aspenström

Snöbrev

Det är sant att slätten är smärtsamt fri

och att konungen är sträng i sin tystnad.

Ge mig ett berg och ett eko säger rösten

om en mild horisont ber ögonen ofta.

Din oro syster är ändå för stor:

fågeltorn kan resa sig på dessa fält

och vita duvor korsa nattens dimma

minnen bygga sina grottor drömmar

tända sina lyktor.

Det är rätt det du frågar om vinden.

Ofta lockades vi ut av misstag

någon hörde steg någon röster.

Alltid var det samma skärande vind

som blandade snö med snö.

Dagen kan därför bli lång men de som väntar

har alltid sin väntan tillsammans

de vakna delar sin vakenhet de sovande

har stämt möte i sin sömn.

Det finns naturligtvis värme mellan oss

fastän vi har blivit snömänniskor

en lägereld som vi sträcker händerna mot

om den också inte brinner med lågor.

De som länge levat under valv av frost

kan plötsligt lyftas liksom av en våg

kan genomströmmas av en okänd kärlek

en oerhörd koral som blodets tunna orgelpipor

aldrig lät dem höra.

Ett brev skriver jag till dig

syster på en blå veranda

en hälsning att jag tänker stanna

att jag kanske aldrig återvänder.

Jag har druckit ett vin av snö

jag älskar en kvinna av snö.

Av snö är ryttaren och hästen

som nu bär brevet till din dörr.

Snow-letter

It’s true that the plain is painfully free

and that the king’s severe in his silence.

Give me a mountain and an echo the voice says

a mild horizon eyes will often beg for.

Your worry sister is still too great

Bird-watching towers can rise up on these fields

and white doves cross the nocturnal mist

memories build their caverns dreams

light their lamps.

What you ask about the wind is correct.

We were often lured out by mistake

someone heard steps someone voices.

It was always the same biting wind

that mingled snow with snow.

So the day can be long but those waiting

will always be waiting together

those awake share their wakefulness those asleep

have arranged to meet up in their sleep.

There is naturally warmth between us

although we’re now figures of snow

a campfire we stretch out our hands to

even if it doesn’t burn with flames.

Those who’ve lived long beneath vaults of frost

can suddenly be lifted as if by a wave

be pervaded by an unknown love

an immense chorale that the blood’s thin organ pipes

never let them hear.

I am writing a letter to you

sister on a blue verandah

a greeting that I will stay

that perhaps I will never return.

I have drunk a wine of snow

I love a woman of snow.

Of snow are the rider and the horse

now carrying the letter to your door.

A poem by Werner Aspenström

Tidvis

Jag misstror det jämlika.

Jämlika styrkor förebådar krig.

Jag misstror det oböjliga.

Ingens uppgivelse är bådas död.

Så mycken stolthet bor i världen

och herradömen utav snö och stelnat blod.

Ingen kan ensam vakta sin levnad.

Någon måste kunna stiga, någon sjunka,

tidvis vara eld och tidvis glömska,

i oupphörlig växling och förbidan.

I natt skall min kärlek bära oss båda.

I morgon skall din kärlek bära oss båda.

At times

I distrust what is balanced.

Balanced forces are harbingers of war.

I distrust what’s unbending.

No one’s waived claim’s the death of both.

There’s so much pride lives in the world

and mastery of snow and blood that’s set.

No one can guard his life alone.

Someone must be capable of rising, someone sinking,

at times of being fire, at times oblivion,

in endless alternation and expectation.

Tonight my love shall bear us both.

Tomorrow your love shall bear us both.

'The Conditions' - Lars Gustafsson

The conditions

There were two yellow houses that obscured the view.

Behind though glimpses of a road, green hillside,

distance, stillness so far that the air stood quivering.

And suddenly there were some persons there, in red jerseys.

It passed so quickly that they were forgotten,

returned though as a fragment from a contest

with end and start both hidden just as hopelessly from view.

Cyclists in an unclear section of the race, devoid of context,

so that the first could be the last or vice versa.

Only existing as long as not concealed from view.

Then there was a train that passed, with all its windows open

throughout the summer: a stronger memory, stronger time.

What an open landscape, roads, waving hands!

And when I looked up from my book the windows were all dark,

with curtains fluttering inwards from a voiceless gust of wind.

I looked and I looked. It could have lasted an eternity.

And understood that of such stuff all days are made.

A Klaus Høeck to start the day

ode to the third day

and then god said: let

the earth put forth green shoots and

it came to pass and

god then mixed himself

a whacking great portion of

waldorf salad with the

all the trimmings the

whole caboodle lots of cel

ery and of whipped

cream the first portion

in the world and god tasted 

it and it was good

Sonnet time again - one from Lars Gustafsson

Sonnet XXVII

To one below the surface of the ice

the ice itself looks as if something white

and openings and wind wells where still quite

open water moves, look, if there’s a slice

of daylight left, as if expanses fraught

with darkness. And only he who knows aright

an exit lies in what is dark, that white

means darkness (that ice can so distort

conditions as they’re pictured by the eye)

and who, against his instinct, swims away

from light towards the dark sees day again.

There is, once a small habit stirs, or by

a word that changes meaning, a chance, though stray,

of someone getting out. That he sees day again.

This one surprised me - one more from Lars Gustafsson

When did people’s mouths get wet?

The small boy asks: Lars,

when did people’s mouths get wet?

What? Well I think

they were wet from the start.

They’re certainly wet in the womb.

There it’s always wet anyway.

Certain things make them wetter,

that’s for sure.

Yes, people’s mouths have always been wet.

Being wet comes to an end.

But there’s no particular day it starts.

A bumblebee poem by Lars Gustafsson

Bombus terrestris

When the air lies still, so too lie the lakes,

the great bright lakes, like quicksilver.

Sleeping dogs’ breathing grows ever more rapid.

The deepest sounds of all are felt as tremblings.

And held hidden in large organ pipes,

sixteen-footers and more, till it’s time.

But out of small holes in the ground sound emerges.

When air pressure falls, sounds of far trains get smothered,

they soundlessly change and move from track to track.

A flyer who lives in the depths of the forest

has folded its wings, is asleep in the rain.

It is not at the start and not at the end.

It is mainland, vast tracts that are far

within maps and deep within time,

a protective forest of years on all sides,

and the larks soar up like a jubilant cloud,

but always some will fall dead, and be gone.

Far too warm to freeze, far too cold

to reside, so far within the world

A backhanded winter, seasons inverted, a year that’s reversed.

When the air lies still, so too lie the lakes.

But at the lowest height, a hand’s breadth above the ground

the temperature changes distinctly: two degrees warmer

and some stifled brown sounds.

All natural science is a question of warmth

and obscuring low clouds.

An early Lars Gustafsson

The balloonists

See the tall man in the top-hat there.

He leans out with a gaze fixed westwards.

It’s early morning, and the light reverberates.

The town with its clocks waits in the distance

the church spires cast blue shadows aimlessly.

It is completely silent, pre-departure.

Close to, the balloon is huge, like some giant pumpkin

that gleams and grows, it has many colours.

The hum of those who watch: a swarm of bumblebees,

they call out, wave to the voyagers in the basket,

who feign indifference, will not let on their destination.

They’re motionless themselves and ready for their trip.

The man in the top-hat has still not ceased to gaze

and lifts a telescope of gleaming brass

as if he searched for clouds or something that’s invisible.

When they ascend they will diminish to a point

until they reach the highers layers of air and snow,

the whitest snow that chills and blinds

will fill the air they breathe, will touch their foreheads.

In autumn it can be seen to fall as frost

the breath of upper air that gropes across the fields,

and you one autumn when the frost falls early

will suddenly recall them and their trip,

and how they still are climbing, dizzily yet higher

through a thinner air than that of winters

with a note like that of splintering glass

from forest depths of brittle rain

and how they rise yet higher through the years

until the very memory sings like slivvered glass.

– and is unbearable, forget me, rather something else!

A pleasure trip, a connoisseurs’ adventure!

A gentleman, light morning-coat and bright-blue waistcoat,

that slowly makes a glove-embellished gesture.

It is free, already it begins to rise,

the cheering imperceptibly sinks down.