Klaus Høeck - 'Legacy' - pp. 346-347

       writing poems as

if the words did not exist

       that is possibly

       also a way out

but i really don’t know when

       one happens to have

       fallen in love with

the words – such as HERZBLUT or

       completely ordi

       nary words such as

these ones – then i i really don’t

       know what to write

       or conversely to

write poems as if only

       the WORDS existed

       that would be even

more peculiar seeing

       the fact that i have

       loved my wife now for

more than thirty years without

       one solitary

       word when the chips were

really down as here and now

       where the poem ends

       thus there is only

this third possibility:

       to let the poem

       float freely between

word and reality like

       the butterflies o

       ver HEARTland that swirl

like shreds of truth and like lies

       that have been torn to

       pieces with flutter

ing wings that make the world (in)

       comprehensible

As midsummer approaches, it's time for Sjöberg

The first time...

The first time that I saw you it was a summer’s day

one morning when the sun was shining bright,

and all the meadow’s flowers, so varied in display,

in pairs stood bowing in its warming light.

So gentle was the morning breeze, and at the shore but slightly

a loving wavelet rippled round a shell the sand held tightly.

The first time that I saw you it was a summer’s day

the first time that I held your hand so lightly.

The first time that I saw you the sky was all ablaze,

so dazzling as the finely feathered swan.

There came then from the forest, the green-fringed forest’s haze,

a chorusing of birds in joyful song.

There trilled a song from high above whose beauty none could equal,

it was the tiny grey-fledged lark, as hard to glimpse as gleeful.

The first time that I saw you, the sky was all ablaze,

so dazzling and intense though without sequel.

And therefore when I see you, though it be winter’s day,

with snowdrifts lying glittering and cold,

I still hear larks’ quick trilling, the summer winds that stray

and spring’s keen urge to even so unfold.

I still sense that from downy beds green plants would be advancing

with cornflower and with cloverleaf all lovers’ joy enhancing,

that rays of summer sunshine upon your features play,

which softly blush in radiance entrancing.

The best-known Swedish summer song by Israel Kolmodin

A Summer Song

The flowering season’s here now

With beauty and great joy/

Delightful summer’s near now

When grass and plants deploy.

The gentle sun’s warmth coaxes

Fresh growth in what’s been dead;

As soon as she approaches/

Reborn life lies ahead.

The meadows’ lovely flowers

And fields of sprouting seeds/

The budding plants in bowers

And all the green-leafed trees/

Should serve to make us wonder

At God’s great goodness here:

On God’s grace then to ponder

Which lasts throughout the year.

We hear birds gladly raising

Their many-throated song;

Shall we then not be praising

Our Lord God too ere long?

My soul, extol God’s splendour

And joyous songs unfold/

That bring delight and tender

Such benefits untold.

Christ Jesus, sun ascending,

Our source of joy and light/

Stay with us till life’s ending;

Our cold minds warm aright:

Renew our soul and spirit:

Our hearts with love’s fire brand:

All pain and grief inhibit/

With thy most gentle hand.

Thou Sharon’s flowers alluring/

Thou lily in green vale/

Ah! crown the soul ensuring

That good deeds there prevail:

Thy mercy shower discreetly/

Like dew of Zion snows;

That it may smell as sweetly/

As Lebanon’s fair rose.

Bless this year’s crop now growing,

And water all our land:

Be daily bread bestowing;

Bless likewise sea and strand.

Thy footsteps drip with richness.

Us nourish with thy word/

And with its wondrous sweetness/

While we have life on earth.

For anyone finding the translation unlikely, consult the original Swedish version to be found under the usual one here.

A poem from 1996 by the Swedish writer Jesper Svenbro

Fugue in C major

Why was Buxtehude played so often

at church concerts in the nineteen fifties?

That at least was the case in Skåne;

and the reason was probably that his organ compositions

had been published in the early part of the decade

by Josef Hedar from Lund.

For us who were young then it was of course difficult

to appreciate the change

that this must have brought about:

for it was as if his music had been played

since the beginning of Eternity.

But somewhere I felt the importance of the moment

when the organist without pedals

let the fugue in C major take to the air!

I wanted to learn how to play.

The church hovered between heaven and earth.

It could have been the Mariakyrka in Helsingborg

where Diderik Buxtehude, twenty years of age,

once gained his first position.

Buxtehude in Helsingborg ...

It is so light in the space around the church just now:

the trees are still bare,

father stands there in his vestments in the spring breeze

conversing with an extremely white-haired Josef Hedar.

And the church door is ajar.

What is it they are talking about?

They stand in the echo of the fugue

that seems never to want to die away

and do not notice that the composer himself

has recently hurried past

and already has got so far out to sea

that he cannot be seen for all the light.