Absentia animi - a long poem by Ekelöf

absentia animi

In autumn

In autumn when one says farewell

In autumn when all gates are open

              onto meaningless enclosed fields

where unreal fungi decay

and waterlogged wheel-tracks are on their way

to nothing, and a snail is on its way

a tattered butterfly is on its way

to nothing, which is a finished rose

the smallest and ugliest. And the crane-flies, the

                                      stupid devils

frail-legged, intoxicated by the lamp’s evening gleam

and the lamp itself that sighs languishing

around light’s vacant sea, thought’s arctic sea

in long waves of

silently murmuring foam

of series divided by series

from nothing through nothing to nothing

sum countersum summa summarum abrasax abraxas Sum

(like the sound of a sewing machine)

And the spiders spin their web in the silent night

and the crickets chirp

              Meaningless.

Unreal. Meaningless.

                                      In autumn

There is rustling in my poem

Words do their duty and lie there

Dust falls over them, dust or dew

till the wind whirls up and lays (them) down

              (and) elsewhere

anyone who insists on seeek the meaning of everything

              has long since realised

that the meaning of the rustling is the rustling

which in itself is something quite different from

wet wellingtons through leaves

absent-minded footsteps through the park’s carpet

of leaves, lovingly sticking

to wet wellingtons, absent-minded steps

You stray, go astray

Do not be in such a hurry

Pause a while

Wait

In autumn when

In autumn when all gates

then it happens that in the last slanting ray

                                      after a day of rain

              at long intervals hesitatingly

                                      as if caught out

a remaining blackbird sings in a tree-top

for nothing at all, for its throat’s sake. You see

its tree-top stand out against the sky’s pale background

close to a lonely cloud. And the cloud swims

like other clouds but also as if left over, hors saison

and essentially long since elsewhere

and in itself (like the song) already something

                                      else than

Eternal rest

              Meaningless. Unreal.

Meaningless. I

sing sit here

about the sky about a cloud

I wish nothing more for myself

I wish myself far far away

I am far off (among the evening echoes)

I am here

Sum countersum summa summarum

You and I

Oh far far off

there swims in the bright sky

above a tree-top a cloud

in happy unconsciousness!

Oh deep down in me

from the surface of the black pearl-eye

in happy half-consciousness

an image of a cloud!

It is not that which is

It is something else

It exists in that which is

but is not that which is

It is something else

Oh far far away

in that which is beyond

there exists something near!

Oh deep down in me

in that which is near

there exists something beyond

that which is beyond-near

in that which is on-this-side-of-distant

something neither nor

in that which is either or:

neither cloud nor image

neither image nor image

neither cloud nor cloud

neither neither nor nor

but something else!

The only thing that exists

is something else!

The only thing that exists

in this that exists

is that which in this

is something else!

(Oh the soul’s lullaby

the song of something else!)

Oh

non sens

non sentiens non

dissentiens

indesinenter

terque quaterque

pluries

vox

vel abracadabra

Abraxas abrasax

Sum countersum summa summarum that becomes some again

              Meaningless.

Unreal. Meaningless.

And the spiders spin their net in the silent night

and the crickets chirp

                            In autumn


You can hear this poem being read here. The version used for the translation is to be found in Svensk Poesi (2016), pp. 652-655.