zkv97: 'Chestnuts'

ZKV97

 

 

chestnuts

 

Halfway up our road there is a chestnut tree, vast, tall. I throw up sticks every autumn to bring down the almost ripe chestnuts to use as conkers. Conkers are bored through with a skewer and string inserted, a knot tied at the bottom. The aim of the game of conkers is this: one person holds the end of his string and lets the conker dangle. The other person holds his conker in one hand, the end of the string in the other and tries to ‘bash’ the other person’s conker and smash it. You take turns if you miss. If you hit the other person’s conker, you get another go. If you smash it, your conker becomes a ‘oner’, ‘twoer’, etc. You’re not allowed to cheat and bake your conker in the oven to make it harder – you can tell if it is from its matt surface.

 

The joys of childhood. But on my walks round the block with the dog I meet chestnuts with lots more spikes, but shorter ones. And inside them are several ‘conkers’. But they aren’t round and have a wispy tail at the top. The tree looks different – and it has pink blossom, not white candelabras. ‘That’s a sweet chestnut,’ ma tells me. ‘You can eat them – you can’t eat horse chestnuts!’ The distinction is utterly clear. 

 

So it is in other languages. German has Edelkastanie (= noble) for a pink tree and Rosskastanie for a white. Danish has ægte kastanje (=genuine) and hestekastanje. So does Swedish. Norwegian prefers søt, Dutch zoet for the pink one. 

And the Latin names indicate clearly that we are dealing with very different species. A sweet chestnut is Castanea sativa; a horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum.

 

I am taught in French at school that pink = marron, white = châtaigne. It turns out almost the opposite is true, although the French get their chestnut terminology all mixed up. And the terms are used fairly indiscriminately, even in French cuisine. There are even French websites that try to explain to puzzled readers:

https://www.cuisineactuelle.fr/guide-du-bien-manger/conversions-et-mesures/quelles-differences-entre-marrons-et-chataignes-et-lesquels-peut-on-vraiment-utiliser-en-cuisine-186874

 

So what I learnt at school was ‘an old chestnut’. There’s a moral in there somewhere.

 

Hans Adolph Brorson: 'Jeg gaaer i fare, hvor jeg gaaer'

I walk in danger where i tread

 

I walk in danger where I tread,
my soul would e’er remind me
that Satan stands behind, ahead
with fetters that would bind me;
his hidden hell-fire’s ray
can oft lead me astray
if from my post I once have fled.
I walk in danger where I tread.

 

I walk in hardship where I tread –
foul sin, I must forswear it;

should God’s rod rain upon my head,

with patience I must bear it;

I often see no way

along which to assay
when setbacks’ mists around me spread.
I walk in hardship where I tread.

 

I walk but deathwards where I tread,

all certainty’s denied me,

each day or hour is one more thread

with which he now has tied me,

a tiny breath of air

can end the whole affair

and to eternity I’m sped.
I walk but deathwards where I tread.

 

I walk midst angels where I tread,
whose loving care’s eternal,

and Satan’s power provokes no dread

in such a host supernal.
Begone, world’s cares malign!
An angel stronghold’s mine
though hairs be harmed upon my head.
I walk midst angels where I tread.

 

I walk with Jesus where I tread,
close by his side he keeps me,
he shelters through the blood he’s shed
and helps me fight if needs be.

And where he once has trod

I too will seek to plod

though some would see me fail instead.
I walk with Jesus where I tread.

 

I walk to heaven where I tread,
so let my heart be cheerful,

its sole goal where all pain is shed

and sin leaves no one tearful.

Begone, world’s pomp and state!

I gaze on heaven’s gate,

all love of worldly goods now dead.
I walk to heaven where I tread.

 

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer: 'Bitter en ironisch sonnet'

 Bitter and ironic sonnet

in which Trump is infected with the

coronavirus

 

 

And if the antichrist at his last gasp

lay hooked to oxygen in isolation,

is hope in order? And is aspiration

for quietness and a firmer U.S. grasp

 

of virtue fitting? And perverse delight?

Is that for once a thing worth reinstating?

Is hate for someone who knows only hating

an act of love, a cause that’s good and right?

 

It is both bitter as it is ironic

that he who recommended jabs of bleach

should end up getting preferential care,

 

while that same care because of his iconic

Obamacare attacks placed out of reach

vain hopes of those whose lives hung by a hair.

A.L. Snijders: 'Eikels'

Acorns

 

The time when I kept pigs is long since over. They used to live outdoors in their own territory and sleep in a hut with lots of straw that I got from a friendly neighbour. To start with, I bought their feed from a firm that specialised in animal feeds, but after a tip from someone at a supermarket, I was able after five ‘o clock to get hold of food that could no longer be sold. The pigs thrived on fruit and herbs and vegetables that were brought here in huge aircraft from countries with exotic names and great poverty. Everyone who saw my pigs were struck by their distinctive behaviour. Once someone said that he couldn’t help thinking of animals from the epoch of the Akkadian Empire between the Euphrates and the Tigris, between 2350 and 2025 BC. The mysterious power those pigs then had has never since been observed. I had never heard of this and did not go into it any further. The old understanding remained that pigs like acorns. It would have been nice if I could have gone with them to the wood behind my house and let them graze on acorns beneath the oak trees. But pigs aren’t like that, they don’t listen to commands. I could only keep them on an enclosed plot of land. This they then churned open, and took great pleasure in doing so. In autumn, the woodland paths were full of acorns and I used to collect them in buckets and take them to the pigs. I did so in order to soften their hearts. It took a lot of time that I really needed to keep the house in reasonable shape, but there was voice inside me that urged me not to consider the pigs as ordinary animals. All of this took place in the last century, I have forgotten about the mysterious power of the pigs, I actually don’t think about it anymore. This morning I was driving along the secondary road that runs through this self-same wood. The weather was fine, everyone was doing eighty. When an opposing car blinked its lights at me, I couldn’t see anything wrong, but I soon did when I saw a bike lying in the road that I was only able to avoid by braking sharply and swerving over onto the verge. The bike had fallen off a carrying rack and could have caused a nasty accident. This took place at a spot in the wood where earlier, in the last century, I had often collected acorns for my Mesopotamian pigs. I don’t find I can justifiably relate the one thing with the other, but it costs me the utmost effort.

Victor Vroomkoning: 'Dodemont'

DODEMONT

 

In the mirror of the busy current

he spies flights of birds, he lets his boots

swirl on behind them, soon blood-red the day

will end in his latest delusion.

Bridges incorporate villages into 

the town, a host of lighters pass beneath,

one by one they disappear round 

the farther bend, he finds a butterfly upon 

his sleeve that’s still alive, mad midges dance 

eternal figures. Barefoot he wanders

round the quay, points upwards,

at the land, what’s happened to him?

 

You hear him mumbling like a monk,

he seems to talk of a ‘close shave’  

or maybe says ‘most brave’ – he finally

emerges as a soldier – hard though

to discern for like a garden fence 

the collar of his tunic frames his mouth.  

 

What’s he up to now? He climbs into steel

girders of a bridge, puts writings on

a wall, then gestures to the clouds and ships

with something that resembles a salute.

 

Soon the distant ceiling gleams above him.

Dodemont – thus is the name his sword-

belt bears – regains the gentle ground but now

without camouflage jacket, which flutters

like a banner on a pier and without helmet

that sticks in the pit of an arch

like a monocle in an eye-socket. Where

is he bound, he has a house? His hair

hangs long, his hollow cheeks show

signs of beard. His paltry back he frees

from his knapsack, digs out a chocolate bar,

from his canteen drips slowly tea or

rum, you grant him nectar, so

low is his supply of milk and honey.

The shadow that the light had sent him

as companion has vanished; the path

he follows takes him past the town

that cranes its neck above the river.

 

Dodemont reaches a small harbour,

a lady standing there exposed to his

gaze, her arms open wide, avows: ‘I am,

sir, always here like war the whore’.

 

 

His body covered with sand and grass,

he finds a sunken road in which he now

takes cover. He now performs the leopard crawl,

his gleaming barrel like a jewel against his jowl,

who will he fight against and for what reason,

for what power does he fix his bayonet?

 

New light peers through the seams of the night.

Dodemont awakes in a kind of watchman’s

house or is it a café, he sips

at sour wine and chews at cake, fishes

up leftovers of pork and cheese from a fold

of a worn-out bag. His heart gets dope

by what his stomach is supplied with,

he belches a dead language, once spoken

hereabouts at this centuries-old water.

He’s sandal-shod, shows dagger and sword, 

wears armour like the comrades in arms

in the muses’ temple round the corner. 

Where is his garrison, his legion,

what brings him here, what has he come to do?

 

 

He lands up - it must be said - amongst

foot-soldiers, well-received, is surprised 

that he is known by people from so far away

in this present now. From double rows

gush gladioli, wreaths,

he only needs to follow his

vocation, waving at palms

of hands. At the tribunes he lingers,

above him a plane traces in the sky

‘Gods greet Dodemont’ as it flies by.

From homage or duty, he raises

an eagle to the light amongst soldier-

talk and signs. The sea of flowers

that’s swamped him he humbly lays at the

feet of the emperors on their square,

hangs wreaths round the necks of the four

maidens at the retaining wall, who stand

like vestal virgins before the native

seasons and places laurels on the man

with the flag recalling the last battle.

 

People are in festive mood, and from the tower 

comes the sound of bells, basses and tenors.

The horizon dims, before night conquers

it Dodemont stares at the hunting-

fields beyond the river on the other side,

what is he thinking of, of what then, just now or here?

 

 

 

Fireworks are let off into the firmament.

Dodemont, who’s up in arms at once, dreams

evidently of a new front: H-Hour.

Believing it too, he has a déjà-vu

of Ultima Thule where he can 

possibly have been, that is before his

mind’s eye every time he marches towards

bridges, fields, hills, expanses of water.

 

You see him marching once more with himself

in boots and sandals as before to points

of the compass where he has already been, bound

for new honours, wreaths, graves.

 

O Dodemont, where have you not already been,

are you not yet sufficiently laid to rest?

Dan Andersson: 'Om vintern i de stora skogarna'

ABOUT WINTERTIME IN THE BIG FORESTS

 

Now I want to tell you about wintertime in the big forests, what it’s like when the last motley of leaves has been torn from the trees and settled on an uneven, rock-hard bed among ant-hills and deep-frozen heather to become earth once more and be reborn the following spring in the form of a fungus or a shy flower and then once more turn its yearning – though to us invisible – eyes towards the great, infinite vault of the sky, from where the light of summer and the cooling rain come. I want to tell you what things were like when Yxsjö-Anders died, and what they were like before he died and what he thought and felt, what he was dreaming of before his consciousness drowned in what we call endless night, since we know nothing about it. If you ask me how I can know all that I now intend to relate, I answer: I have dreamt some of it, experienced some of it, carried out some research and the rest I have heard from the dark logs of the cabin, from the rotting timber around the bed fixed to the wall, from barrels and buckets and pots and utensils he once held in his working-man’s hands, from axes and scythes that he has sharpened and worked with. Oh, don’t say that I can’t know all this – if I didn’t know it, how could I possibly be able to feel such a great love of it that I have to sit down and relate it all. I know a great deal, so much that I don’t dare tell everything. Just listen – and when I’ve finished, you will understand that it’s the truth!

He’d been in the grocer’s shop and for the last of his money bought herring and flour and matches and salt, enough for him to be able to manage for the rest of the month and not have to trudge the dozen miles yet again before the stocking up started for Christmas. He had gone out into the twilight heavily weighed down and a bit clumsily, as he had downed a couple of drams from the grocer, whose nets he used to repair and who he was distantly related to. Since his wife had died and he had buried his only daughter, who had gone mad from love and drowned herself in the small lake near Tvåmyrarna, things had steadily gone downhill for Anders. He had once been a wealthy farmer, but not one of the haughty kind – he had a disposition that led him to help all those who were poor. There wasn’t a crofter who didn’t owe him money – if they needed a cow and didn’t have the money, they went to Yxsjö. Anders admittedly wrote an IOU, he was a meticulous businessman when it came to writing things down, but he never demanded repayment. You might have thought that in his poverty and old age he would have enjoyed consideration and care from his neighbours — but —

There’s nothing people forget as quickly as good deeds.

When he turned off onto the shortcut across the neck of the bog at Brännfallen the light was already so dim that he couldn’t see the path properly, and he was seventy years old. He walked slowly, leaning heavily on his large, thick juniper stick and thinking of how fast winter had come and how severe it was. The last time he had walked here had been in an afternoon heat, with hundreds of rustling lizards slithering off the path and hiding in the shadows when his hobnail shoes plodded on through the three-foot-tall heather on either side of the path. Here at a bend he had pounded a female adder to death that was swollen with young and then flung her aside with his stick so that she ended up hanging from a bush. And he had heard the crows screeching above the fir trees, probably grieving at the snake’s funeral, ha, ha! He recalled that Bark-Petter, the local sorcerer, had stood holding a live adder down with a fork in an ant-hill so as to torment it, for after all it was the serpent that had caused sin to enter the world, but Yxsjö-Anders had grown flaming angry and made the sorcerer kill the snake. Bark-Petter had been furious and threatened Anders – but he merely laughed and squinted up at the stars: a man in the right did not need to fear sorcery, for he had God on his side, and that was the end of it, oh yes, oh yes.

Now it was dreadfully cold, with the north wind roaring like an angry bull and snow whirling madly down over the bog. He was very tired and his sight was very weak, but he felt his way forward – as long as he had solid ground under his feet, he was sure he was on the path, and he had already walk three miles or so. He was now inside Bandarberg forest, and it was growing dark. It was then that he suddenly felt his knees give way and understood that now he would have to take things calmly, for otherwise he would be the bridegroom in Brangen mortuary the following Sunday. He was an old forester and knew that he must not sit down – but he had matches and a knife on him. If he could strike a match and break off a little kindling, there would be no danger in taking a rest and roasting a bit of herring in the embers and — — —

It was terrible just how little dry kindlewood there was! With fumbling hands he felt his way forward under the trees in search of dry branches. Finally he had collected a few fistfuls of twigs and he then laid them professionally up against an old, tarry kindlewood stump and struck a match. Within ten minutes, he had a bonfire going. He then crawled out to the path again, to make sure that it was close by. He stamped and trampled around with his feet, but it was just as soft and loose everywhere in the snow – he had lost the path. But no worry, he would find his way home just as soon he had rested.

Laboriously and shakily he broke off thin branches to sit on, sat down and gazed at the stump, which was burning with huge, spluttering flames and great clouds of billowing smoke. A stump like that would keep burning for the rest of the night, at least, so he need not worry at all about that.

He felt hungry, but was too tired to consider frying some bacon, he needed to rest first, and he leant against the roots of an overturned fir tree and gazed dreamily into the blood-red flames around the kindwood stump. It was strange that it could snow so hard even though it was so cold – and the strangest thing of all was the freezing cold and violent storm at one and the same time, he thought. Great clouds of snow danced spattering into the fire without being able to put it out – it was as if even ice and snow would burn in the avaricious, stubborn fire.

It was good to have a fire and to have a ‘toppled-root-post’ behind his back, which even so was freezing cold. Anders lifted his fumbling hands to his fur hat and pulled it down almost over the nape of his neck and ridge of his nose. He curled himself up and made himself as small as possible, just looked into the fire and wondered at the din of the storm in the tree-tops round about him. He was deep in the forest, a long way from his cabin – and he would not have the strength to walk home if he stayed until the snow had drifted to the height of a man. He had better start walking – at once. His reason was stronger than his fatigue and inertia, and with an almost superhuman effort he rose to his feet and dragged himself a few steps from the fire. Then he felt compelled to stand there and watch it burn, for a while.

He stood staring at the friendly, warmth-giving fire for a while, at the thin branches of fir he had been lying on and at the protective ‘toppled-root-post’. Then he tore himself away and set off in the direction he thought his home lay. There was no point in thinking about the path, but he sensed that he was moving in the right direction.

Several times he felt close to giving up and to lie down, but his old tenacity helped him, and when he came across the roundpole fence three hours after he had given up all hope of finding the way home, the snow was so deep in the cleared land that he almost had to only take one step at a time and then stand still and rest before taking the next. His big boots must surely be frozen solid onto his feet – he could not feel either of them, and his back ached terribly. When there were only ten steps left to the door of his cabin he fell down, and then crawled forward to the doorstep, got up onto his knees, just managed to unlock the door and crawled inside. He still just had enough strength to close the door, but that was all. He was unable to reach his bed, he just lay where he lay.

He thought there was a fire alight in the stove, a great, crackling pinewood fire, and he wondered who had lit it for him while he had been away. He couldn’t understand that he was lying so softly, that it was so warm and that his body did not ache any more. He rumble around him with his hand, caught hold of a package, tore off the paper and lifted the small piece of cured bacon to his lips, took a bite and then let it all down beside him. He would eat later, he hadn’t the strength right now, and he was also so sleepy. The fire grew stronger and stronger, he thought, the room became warmer and warmer. The door opened and people went in and out, looked at him, stepped over him and talked to each other. Then he saw Maja, his wife, stirring the fire, then the children who sang hymns with piping voices. Wasn’t it Christmas? Oh, the room became as large as a church and full of crowns with candles in them, oh, how they gleamed. And just as the hymn swelled, he closed his eyes and smiled – and died.

They said, those who found him, that he was lying on the plank floor with his boots on, and that he had completely frozen to stone. But they also related that it almost seem that his face was laughing – it was his smile that had frozen solid in his aged face before he had finished it. But in a chest a sheet of paper was found that he once had written, and on it stood: ‘All IOUs and mortgages have been burnt, so none of them are to be collected from the poor, for everything has been remitted.’

Could not a man die easily, when it comes to it? Yes, and then – he had no did not suffer at all! It was a beautiful death!

Victor Vroomkoning: 'Olivier Messiaen'

Olivier Messiaen

 

Leed aan synesthesie,

ziekte en beeldspraak

tegelijk, hoorde kleur

zoals de eerste vogel

die groen weerspiegeld

zag toen de wind hoorbaar

over de wateren streek,

eerste muziek waar

zijn keel die imiteerde.

 

Groen zong de wind,

groen zong de nachtegaal,

groen strijken de violen

van Messiaen, vogelaar

onder de muziekscheppers.

 

Zag de kleuren die zijn

lotgenoten zongen, stak ze

in fluit, piccolo, triangel,

herschiep de leeuwerik,

herblies de eerste zucht.

 

 

Olivier Messiaen

 

Suffered from synaesthesia,

illness and imagery

at the same time, heard colours

like the first bird

that saw reflected 

green when the wind stroked

audibly across the waters,

first music imitated

by his throat.

 

The wind sang green,

green sang the nightingale

green stroke the violins

of Messiaen, sweet-beaked

among the creators.

 

Saw the colours which his

fellow-creatures sang, fed them

into flute, piccolo, triangle,

recreated the lark,

rebreathed the first sigh.

 

Wilhelm Müller: 'Der Leiermann'

Der Leiermann

 

Drüben hinter‘m Dorfe 

Steht ein Leiermann, 

Und mit starren Fingern 

Dreht er was er kann.

Barfuß auf dem Eise 

Schwankt er hin und her; 

Und sein kleiner Teller 

Bleibt ihm immer leer.

Keiner mag ihn hören, 

Keiner sieht ihn an; 

Und die Hunde knurren 

Um den alten Mann.

Und er läßt es gehen 

Alles, wie es will, 

Dreht, und seine Leier 

Steht ihm nimmer still.

Wunderlicher Alter,

Soll ich mit dir gehen? 

Willst zu meinen Liedern 

Deine Leier drehn?

 

The Hurdy-Gurdy Man

 

Past the village stands a 

Hurdy-gurdy man,

And with rigid fingers

Plays as best he can.

Barefoot on the ice he

Staggers to and fro, 

And his small plate’s empty –

Nothing there to show.

No one wants to listen, 

No one looks his way, 

Dogs snarl round the old man

Each and every day.

And he lets things happen

Any way they will,

Churns his hurdy-gurdy,

It is never still.

Strange old man, I wonder,

Shall I go with you?

Will your hurdy-gurdy 

Play to my songs too?

To hear a recording of Schubert's song from 'Winterreise', go to here

Dan Andersson: 'Gässen flytta'

Gässen flytta

 

När de gamla såren heta tära,

när din kind är vätt av ensamhetens gråt,

när att leva är att stenar bära

och din sång är sorg som vilsna tranors låt,

gå och drick en fläkt av höstens vindar,

se med mig mot bleka, blåa skyn!

Kom och stå med mig vid hagens grindar,

när de vilda gässen flyga över byn!

The geese are on the wing

 

When old wounds still rack with pain unsparing,

when your cheeks are moist with tears of loneliness,

when your life feels like huge stones you’re bearing

and your song’s as sad as stray cranes in distress,

may a waft of autumn breeze your guide be,

come and gaze with me at pale, blue sky!

At the garden gate stand close beside me

when above the village wild geese onward fly!