Thursday, 25 August 2016

The first two poems of 'Tag och skriv' by Gunnar Ekelöf

START WRITING

I

About life, about the living.
About death, about the dead.
About loving and hating.
About east and west,
the two that will never meet
and never separate,
only suspect each other’s presence,
sense and follow each other’s movements,
as a person must
in hatred and love.

I sing of the only thing that reconciles,
the only practical thing, the same for all:
How seldom a person possesses the power
to relinquish power!
To relinquish I and speech, relinquish –
the only thing that gives power.


II

I rise up out of my ashes –
a thinking emotional life
on my way to being swallowed by the formlessly billowing
I float once more.
A person only exists as a witness:
Start writing!
There is no other strength than inner strength
and it comes from without,
from the mysterious something that moves up there,
is glimpsed among dimly luminous clouds,
pours galvanically over you
so you feel yourself wrestling!
Then it is the force wrestling, not you!
With what is the force wrestling?
There is no weakness except inner weakness
and it comes from without,
from the mysterious something that moves down there,
shifting form, darkly billowing,
menacing, magnetic.
You feel how strong arms are wrestling!
Then it is the force wrestling, not you!
With what is the force wrestling?
Indeed, you are nothing more than a battlefield!
A wanderer whose cloak the sun and the storm simultaneously take,
simultaneously! Not in turns.
Ice-cold in the shade, white-hot in the sun:
The soul’s April.


To see the original, and hear the poet read the poems, go to here

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