Monday 16 May 2016

Another poem about the sea - by Rabbe Enckel

The sea kneads its memories

The sea kneads its memories
until they are smoothly polished:
and yet they mean so little.
For the sea itself is a single
great memory
a single great now.
Therefore: demand from the phrase
the velvet-soft lustre of the perfect leaf,
or force it to form itself into a rock’s patella!
How fortunate to remember nothing,
nothing! And yet to be a testimony
of something bygone – a testimony in the bold line
of the face, the emancipation of the hand,
the reserve of the mouth – a testimony in the voice.
And what you say is of no consequence
like the crushed egg-shells of an abandoned nest.


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