Klaus Høeck: from the Grundtvig track of 'In Nomine'

 This is the first poem in the Grundtvig track of 'In Nomine'. You can find it on pp.41-50 in both the Danish original and the English translation pdf. As before, I have marked the lines taken from Grundtvig in red. As before the English translation differs slightly from a later translation I made of the Grundtvig poem. To see this later translation, go to here.

       now gleams the sun in

all its glory out over 

       padesø church and

 

it is not even sunday or some

other church festival after 

 

trinity but a perfectly nor

mal seven sleepers day that slow

 

       ly fades away in

to a dream in the summer 

       night’s fleeting coolness

 

       a heavenly breath

sighs o’er the dust in all the 

       cemeteries in

 

all the cemeteries of denmark

a breath of elder and dog rose

 

sighs over the heart’s nineteen grammes

of calcium till the resurrection

 

       it causes the rain

now falling it sires all spir

       it now descending

 

 

       it sires all spirit

now descending into the 

       poem’s core of words

 

which it scatters to the four winds

and on every side to form one tongue

 

that stretches all the way from ‘pader

borner beer’ to ‘heinz tomato

 

       ketchup’ and the new

testament in jesu’s name 

let tongues be aglow

 

 

     in jesu’s name let

tongues be aglow with emmen 

       thaler and bordeaux

 

and forming the sound of your name

my love: a rose branch covered in salt 

and your kisses that burn with si

licon and almond oil as well as

 

       the line of the hymn

by grundtvig ‘now gleams the sun 

       in all its glory’

 

 

       in jesu’s name let

tongues be aglow in every 

       key there is with song

 

and interjections with all the

words of creation the first as

 

well as the last which no one un

derstands before he is dead and gone 

 

       bearing the living

word in mind it sires all spir 

       it now descending

 

 

       it sires all spirit

now descending from the great 

       quarry of the sky

 

where thunder has its home and god

although in other castles than the

 

clouds of silver and mother of pearl

out there in the west at the end

 

       of the world and that

of life where a heavenly 

       breath sighs o’er the dust

 

 

       a heavenly breath

sighs o’er the dust well mixed with 

       nitrofoska and

 

pesticides from the farmer’s toxic

unit there is an earthly dust

 

over the spirit’s visibili

ty of green miracles it stinks

 

       of death and corrup

tion even in the summer 

       night’s fleeting coolness

 

 

       in the summer night’s

fleeting coolness beneath the 

       radar screens of the

 

elder bush we cool our senses –

for no project exists that is wild 

 

er than the fire of faith and the dark

flame of love and the protuber

 

       ances of hope a

round the heart now gleams the sun 

       in all its glory

 

 

       now gleams the sun in

all its glory striking the 

       heart’s dish aerial

 

so that creation may be seen

as the reality it really

 

is without distortion in all

its grandeur and its mortal splendour

 

       in nomine in

nomine in jesu’s name 

       let tongues be aglow

 

 

       in the summer night’s 

fleeting coolness i’m lying 

       on my air mattress

 

close to the darkest forests of the

heart which are so frightening and

 

compelling as death itself where

light only reigns in the realm of dreams and 

 

       in paradise or

in the hymn: now gleams the sun 

       in all its glory

 

 

       a heavenly breath

sighs o’er the dust from the hole 

       in the ozone layer 

 

ultraviolet and invisible

from another light source than

 

the sun that sounds like a vio

lin concerto as it sets in

 

       the little belt and

is put out in the summer 

       night’s fleeting coolness

 

 

it sires all spirit

now descending while the leg 

horn cockerel crows

 

unheeded and to deaf ears from the yard

of the nextdoor neighbour as 

 

if just three times did not matter

and two and five were just the same while

 

       the corn is smoking

in pollen: a heavenly 

       breath sighs o’er the dust

 

 

       in jesu’s name let

tongues be aglow with cinders 

       and coals and words that 

 

smoke from july’s charcoal stacks words

that bear an ordeal of fire through the

 

poem to melt reality and lan

guage together to form one

 

       world and one uni

ty once more it sires all spir 

       it now descending

 

 

       a heavenly breath

sighs o’er the dust on the win 

       dow sills and over

 

the persian carpet from the flying

summers of my childhood as if 

 

a great telekinesis is tak

ing place somewhere behind my back

 

       or whenever i

close my eyes it sires all spir 

       it now descending

 

 

       in the summer night’s

fleeting coolness we stroll through 

       the beeches’ baron

 

ial halls in adidas shoes on

the border between words and speech

 

in poetry’s greenest vales and list

en to death’s nightingales which can 

 

       only be compre

hended when a heavenly 

       breath sighs o’er the dust

 

 

       now gleams the sun in

all its glory over strand 

       bakken near ege 

 

løkke as not in the poem from

long ago when it set but now

 

over the basalt of love and spir

itual flint and gabbro now

 

       before it cools it

self here too in the summer 

       night’s fleeting coolness