Thursday 23 December 2010

A highly relevant poem by the Danish poet Jens August Schade


Snow

So, we got snow after all,
and there I was thinking we wouldn’t get any snow,
and it really looks as if we’re in for a right load of snow,
and not go on eternally thinking about snow without it coming.

The air too has snow in it,
it’s almost laden with snow,
perhaps there’s heavy snowfall far off,
that you can sort of feel inside you
without directly knowing it,
but that comes so that you can see it.

I’ve been hoping for snow all the time,
it’s funny even so that it came.
Yes, there it lies now –
look how white it is,
I’m really bloody pleased about it,
I’ve probably been thinking all the time that it would come.

And then all of a sudden there it is –
it’s funny even so that it comes like that
without you doing anything to make it come,
I haven’t plucked it out of the air,
it’s sort of come by itself.

(1934)

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