Lars Gustafsson's 'small wingèd singers'

Spring’s joyous choir of birds

Dedicated to Staffan Söderblom

Ah those joyous voices of birds in spring!

How well I too remember the choir

of those small wingèd singers

They were borne in on a special tray

by schoolmaster Gustav Edin,

extremely dusty, increasingly pale in colour

and – it might possibly seem –

somewhat overambitiously

stuffed:

sparrow and nightingale, hawk and pied fly-catcher,

meadow pipit and dipper –

And from a gramophone record

from Radio Sweden, much over-used,

all their joyous voices were played

I never learnt

to distinguish one chirp from the other

And now in October the dull voice

of the curlew is all that is left

I did however

finally learn that one

A favourite Komrij poem - Fietstocht

BIKE RIDE

The distant post office was my pole star.

Not for its airmail stamps or for the print

On foreign postmarks – no, much more by far

As upstairs library it did full stint.

On Tuesday and on Thursday afternoon,

I’d disappear across that spacious floor

And,wreathed in smiles, I’d re-emerge quite soon,

Equipped with my supply of books once more.

My head now whirling  with a new sensation

At some first line that I had swiftly glanced,

I guessed, while biking, what would then ensue.

The pedals, though, were pounded till they danced

To get home all the faster, since I knew:

A book is better than imagination.

One of the best-known Danish Christmas carols - Ingemann's 'Dejlig er Jorden'

Fair is creation

marvellous God’s heaven,

blest the souls in their pilgrim throng.

Through realms of earthly

loveliness onward

we go to paradise with song!

Ages lie waiting,

ages quick in passing,

generations that form a throng.

Music from heaven

never falls silent

in this the soul’s glad pilgrim song

Angels first sang it

to the wond’ring shepherds,

sweet was from soul to soul its sound:

Peace and rejoicing

be to all people,

for us a saviour now is found!

Brorson to start the Christmas season

My heart is always roaming

My heart is always roaming

Where once the Christ child lay,

And on that stable homing

My thoughts collect each day.

A refuge for soul’s fretting,

My faith’s most treasured seat,

I’ve no way of forgetting

You Christmas night so sweet.

My heart’s delight and palace

Shall you, dark stable, be,

Where each day I gain solace

From earth’s cruel mockery,

Best weigh there free from danger

The nature of my praise

When thoughts of Jesu’s manger

So set my heart ablaze.

But, ah! What shall I utter

When thinking with a sigh

That heaven’s Lord in but a

Poor manger had to lie,

That heaven’s joy and splendour,

God’s word of precious worth,

Derision now engender

Upon this wretched earth!

A pearl that’s lost with zeal is

Sought out until it’s found,

The diamond’s bright appeal is

Best seen atop a crown,

No grape is thrown down surely

’Mongst branches that are dry:

Shall I see God then poorly

In some mean stable lie?

Why not in halls appointed

With all that’s fine and grand?

(They had, if you’d but pointed,

Been decked at your command)

Why would you not be swathed in

Bright light that formed a band,

And let earth’s kings come craving

To kiss you by the hand?

Why did you keep from raising

A welkin as your tent,
And have star-torches blazing,

Oh hero, heaven-sent?

Why was not on display too

A guardian angel host,

That in silk quilts would lay you,
As did befit you most?

No! Jesu’s bed’s a stable

At this good Christmastide,

Where beggars if they’re able

From winter’s cold will hide,

And all the hay he lay in

Was meant for beasts alone,

He did not have a say in

A thing to call his own.

It is beyond all reason

That Jesus, God and man

This vale of woe as prison

Must suffer for a span,

He, who will judge for ever

The living and the dead,

Has got no place whatever

Where he can lay his head.

A nest has e’en the sparrow,

A safe place to call home,

Nor needs the fleeting swallow

For night-time shelter roam.

Nor does a lion know anguish,

Its cave has rest in store;

Shall then my Saviour languish

On some strange stable’s straw?

Ah! Come! I will throw open

My heart, my soul and mind,

A thousand sighs have spoken,

Come, Jesus, come and find!

It is no unknown chamber,

You bought it with your blood!

Here will you sweetly slumber

In my heart swathed for good.

Your resting-place so holy

Shall strewn with palm-sprigs lie,

My bridegroom, for you solely

I will both live and die.

Come! let my soul find bliss in

The fount to which it’s wed,

A thousand times be kissing

Your sweet mouth rosy red.

Poem by Paul Celan - Die Winzer

Die Winzer

For Nani und Klaus Demus

Sie herbsten den Wein ihrer Augen,

sie keltern alles Geweinte, auch dieses:

so will es die Nacht,

die Nacht, an die sie gelehnt sind, die Mauer,

so forderts der Stein,

der Stein, über den ihr Krückstock dahinspricht

ins Schweigen der Antwort –

ihr Krückstock, der einmal,

einmal im Herbst,

wenn das Jahr zum Tod schwillt, als Traube,

der einmal durchs Stumme hindurchspricht, hinab

in den Schacht des Erdachten.

Sie herbsten, sie keltern den Wein,

sie pressen die Zeit wie ihr Auge,

sie kellern das Sickernde ein, das Geweinte,

im Sonnengrab, das sie rüsten

mit nachtstarker Hand:

auf daß ein Mund danach dürste, später –

ein Spätmund, ähnlich dem ihren:

Blindem entgegengekrümmt und gelähmt –

ein Mund, zu dem der Trunk aus der Tiefe emporschäumt, indes

der Himmel hinabsteigt ins wächserne Meer,

um fernher als Lichtstumpf zu leuchten,

wenn endlich die Lippe sich feuchtet.

The Winemakers

For Nani and Klaus Demus

They harvest the wine of their eyes,

they press out what’s wept, this included:

the night wills it so,

the night against which they’re leaning, the wall,

the stone so demands,

the stone, over which their crutch speaks out into

the hush of the answer  –

their crutch that just once,

once in the autumn,

when the year swells to death, as grape,

that speaks once through the muteness, down into

crafted thought’s mineshaft.

They harvest, they press out the wine,

time too they squeeze like their eye,

they cellar what’s dripping, been wept,

in the sun-lined grave, which they stack

with night-strengthened hand:

that a mouth might thirst for it, later –

a late-mouth that looks like their own:

crooked toward, lamed to that which is blind –

a mouth to which the drink foams up from the depths, while

the sky sinks down into the waxen sea,

to gleam like a candle-stump seen from afar

when at last the lip gains some moisture.