Klaus Høeck: 'digte' from the collection 'Heartland'

 

         the danish word digte means

     both to write poems and 

to caulk (i.e. is not just a chance

 

         homonymy) to caulk 

     reality the pointing

between language and

 

         world digtning is

              the actual process of

     filling in holes and

 

cracks as when ship’s hulls

         are caulked and brushed

     with tar and pitch

 

 

         the first splash of

burnt umbra on the greenest

                   leaf of summer

 

     are we dealing with a

         false beauty spot

or with a reminder

 

         perhaps on the

         highest day of the year with

the mortality of everything the

 

         final return of

     everything to itself

         to where it came from?

 

 

         down in the old

norse deeper than the ‘dictare’

     of the latin

 

         in another soil the word

     ‘digte’ also means

to seal (see for yourself

 

in the dictionary

         of the danish language

     volume three) just as

 

         when the magnolia tree

     pulls heaven and earth

tighter together