A poem by the Danish writer Peter Laugesen

THE ORIGIN OF EVERYTHING

This morning

the roaring whisper of the sea.

The song of the birds.

Inspiration

and the necessity of crafting.

The carefree clouds play in the wind.

Stars by the thousands

glittering small

pebbles on columns of sand.

The children wake up

in a burning language.

A forest after the storm.

Where do they come from

and where are they off to?

The night’s weightlessness

broke like a flood

into their eyes.

They fall out

of open textbooks

like sunshine.

I hear

what the withered trees

have to say.

The grass

runs up the slopes.

A white bird and four

small black pebbles,

gleaming with salt water,

guard sleep’s open door.

The seaweed’s writing

illegible –

one day perhaps

an archaeologist whose fate’s an early death

will solve the mystery –

a lost language

that an unruly younger sister

has flung away on the beach.

Words drift across the paper like clouds in the sky

and their shadows drift through the mind.

Walk westwards along the shore

and turn left southwards

at the first drop of rain.

Take the first path eastwards

till where the yarrow’s in flower

and turn southwards again along the stream,

and you’ll come to our spot.

The sand flies

like white ants

on the wind’s thoughts

through the bristly manes of the dunes

In every single

little thing

never before seen

in truth’s kindly

killing light:

How can we do

what we do

to the origin of everything?

Birds sing themselves to death

and pebbles fearlessly meet

the howling wind on the beach.