A poem by the Swedish writer Ragnar Thoursie (1919-2010)

The blind crow

Consider the birds! Their

preparations are not for certain

death – but for uncertain

life. The nutcracker hoards thousands

of pine seeds for the winter, trusts in the weather.

As do I, blind in my faith

in fleeting earthly life.

Anonymous Swedish poem of 16th or possibly 17th century origin

Gamble man han lijknas

widh barkelösa ek.

Alle sine gräner

fäller hon från sigh.

Hon rotner i röter,

hon faller nidher i tåpp.

Gamble mannen faller af,

then vnge wexer vp.

Old man

Old man he resembles

an oak with no bark:

sheds its many branches

till it stands stark,

its roots start to rot

it thins out on top.

Old man falling off,

young man coming up.

Poverty and Illness

the city would see,

at evening Grief met them,

then were they sisters three.

Arranged a meeting

at the old man’s door;

Almighty God spare the old man

who dwells within for sure.

The old man strokes

his pate of grey hair,

old age tries the patience

of his kin everywhere.

kinsmen he’s a-plenty,

precious few friends has he;

may God in heaven spare the one

whose trust in such must be.

The old man’s nose bends

like a branch to the ground.

The world is as treacherous

as river-ice unsound;

it creaks and it cracks,

it breaks and sinks away:

so fares an old man

that lives for many a day.

Death he most resembles

a huntsman of stubborn mind:

his hounds he unleashes

to hunt a single hind,

he hunts perhaps just one,

it could be he hunts twain,

or maybe creatures one and all,

till all of them are slain.

Another poem by the Dutch writer Martin Reints

Lawnmower

Thoughts go on their way

but not their own way

like a lawnmover goes ahead of you

if you walk behind it

now that you can’t sleep

you wait:

till what’s happening in your head takes its own flight

won’t you fall asleep

or can’t you fall asleep

or: can’t you let yourself fall asleep

which is it

you let your feet become heavy,

your legs, your entire body

till it’s so heavy it seems to sink through the bed you’re lying in

or lying on

which is it, nocturnal lawnmower

which, till your body’s no longer there

or till it starts to grow light.

To see more translations of Reints, go to the Poetry International Web here

Yet again a poem by the 19th century Danish poet N.F.S. Grundtvig

Grey grow the clouds

Grey grow the clouds and the leaves are falling,

hushed are the birds long ago,

winter now threatens, and night is calling

flowers sadly sigh: see the snow!

And yet we the torch gladly carry!

Winter is coming, and snow is falling,

flowers wilt and die in their mould,

weeping for Balder no ice is thawing

stiff grow all tears from the cold.

And yet we the torch gladly carry!

Solstice draws near, a new page is turning,

days start to lengthen once more,

sunshine increases, the winter spurning,

larks sing as skyward they soar.

Therefore we the torch gladly carry!

Fearing old age, years replace each other

as every bard knows is right,

birds every year have to shed their feathers

to add more lift to their flight.

And yet we the torch gladly carry!

Birds fly as swift as the wind when winging

lightly o’er wildest of waves,

bards fly aloft, with their rhymes full-ringing,

smoothly o’er ancestors’ graves.

And yet we the torch gladly carry!

Hearts start to falter when loudly beating,

drawn to the birds’ parting track,

light though now triumphs, dark thoughts defeating,

into the ground drives them back

And yet we the torch gladly carry!

Hymns ring out gladly, and bells are chiming,

as Christmas snow they deride,

winter with springtime must needs be rhyming,

melts though the sun has to hide.

And yet we the torch gladly carry!

Hearts full of faith midst the winter’s sadness

give birth to spring bright and clear,

press close the babe newly born with gladness

sure of a blessèd New Year!

And yet we the torch gladly carry!

Bethlehem’s child in the manger lowly

means spring eternal is here,

hearts full of faith sense the message holy:

Christmas will bless the New Year!

Therefore we the torch gladly carry!

To hear the original poem sung by a girls' choir, go to here

A section on the concept of 'necessity' from the collection 'In Nomine' by the Danish poet Klaus Høeck

like the snowstorm from

the north east like a thighbone

like osidian

such is necessi

ty i here pay homage to

i of all people

who wrote such great po

ems in praise of freedom for

tified with rubies

like ‘das wohltemper

ierte klavier’ such

is necessity

prelude and fugue one

more time and yet again mar

vellous E major

like a samurai

sword the keenest of the all

keys connected with mer

cy in both physi

cal and metaphysical

sense connected with

infallibili

ty and swans that shed their plum

age in fairytales

necessity is

what i want to write about

there’s no more time for

any digressions

of lapis lazuli my

days are fading a

way like smoke my joints

are on fire i must get in

to what is essen

tial i must get in

to G major’s inexor

able sun topaz

necessity is

not the same as the ruby

glass of causali

ty but what the dif

ference consists of i have

no idea whatso

ever it is not

a modus ponens either

or a japanese

stone lamp outside in

the snowshowers – you are my ne

cessity my love

necessity is

as death is completely just

no one escapes – no

one – were you to change

into a bird were you to

offer your belo

ved in exchange no

no cameraderie here

no preferential

treatment here necess

ity is as incorrup

tible as borax

there is nothing small

about necessity or

dehydrated i

do not believe eith

er it has been embellished

with mother of pearl

or rectified in

polish vodka like poe

try it reminds one

more of a slaughter

house than of a petit four

confectioner’s shop

i think that necess

ity must taste of rust and

of wood sorrel but

i know that it is

larger than saturn and vi

olet that it still

exists even though

you shut your eyes and pretend

that it is not so

necessity is

pure and consecrated to

death like youth itself

like C major like

the syllables in a hai

ku like my own name

such is necessi

ty – don’t try to talk to me

about the little

spasm that is called free

dom the little phobia

of self-glorifi

cation that is called

freedom like death itself such

is necessity

For the whole book, available electronically from the Royal Library in Copenhagen, go to here

Poem by the Dutch poet K. Schippers

The gift

Give me what’s on you.

Not keys or money.

Just what happens to be there.

The hurriedly scribbled phone number.

The note in your jacket pocket that also got dry-cleaned.

The button on the point of getting lost.

The words you came within an inch of saying.

Your strength that’s too much to open a door.

All that’s of no use to you any more.

Give me the rustle of your cotton.

The wind can do without it.

Poem from the collection 'Oh, Paradise' by the Norwegian writer Mona Høvring

THE GIRL FROM THE MUSSEL RESTAURANT

We are attractively wretched, you and I,

as thirteen-year-old girls when we wake up.

Late in the day we sound out the bare rocks,

slip on the kelp, sit on the salt-white surface,

and cling onto what could be called our house.

If we were stinging jellyfish we would

possibly have a greater understanding of water.

And we think of the same thing, you and I,

in cheerful disgust, in sucking shame −

seductive and aromatic,

leaning against a pinball machine.

After a back-racking day in the garden, this translation of a poem by the Dutch writer Ida Gerhardt

GEORGICA

Labor improbus

I am a gardener, nothing more,

with earth and muck bespattered sore;

I stretch up tall, I bend down low

I tightly clasp my spade and hoe.

I weed, observe my deepest law

when planting seedlings frail and raw:

I bend down low, I stretch up tall.

A gardener am I, that is all.

I go home stiffly in the shade,

pain racks both groin and shoulder blade.

I still keep watch when rest I may.

My land, my land: brief is the day.

Prepare for me a wedge of ground,

forget where I lie safe and sound.

Past trouble, need and pain must be

a garden strewn with stars for me.

To see the original poem, go to here

Poem from the new bilingual anthology '100 Danish Poems' by the Danish writer Otto Gelsted

 

September

The stooks of corn stand shaggy and heavy

like a drove of mighty oxen.

Cows graze

down by the shore

and lie far away

like a band over the hill.

The air is bright and clear.

Blackberries line the roadside!

And in the depths of the wood

the white ink caps glisten

like wax candles in the dark.

Earth and sea brim with fruitfulness.

In the gardens the dull thud

of falling gravensteins,

exploding with juice against the ground.

Large salmon, seeking up-river

run into the fisherman’s net.

The oats are gathered in,

and the harvest mouse young,

no bigger than a fingernail,

red, hairless and with blue spots for eyes,

are raked out of their nest in the corn.

The spiders are in flight,

like a moon-bridge over the fields

there is sun, reflected in their web.

Massive white clouds

sail across the world.

The days slip past,

and the mills are now still.

The earth spins into the dark,

and the Plough swings forward

over black, soughing trees.

To go to meet winter

like a field full of seed –

To enter the night

like a sky whose blue soil

is full of glittering stars –

to die like a day in September

replete with life and light!

For a list of the authors and poems in the anthology, go to here. 

Another poem by the Dutch poet Martin Reints

Back to the beginning

In the midst of the present

that dwells in its day-to-dayness

to leave memory step by step in the lurch

to leave yourself behind among all those things

that are being worn down there

that with their wearing down allow day-to-dayness to exist

in the strange rhythm within which bookcases full of books

and offices full of office furniture

change into clouds of dust

into hot desert sand that shimmers in mirages

into wild rivers and into new housing estates

because it can’t be otherwise and because it happens to be so

to forget at ever-increasing speed:

what was it again?

and so to return to the beginning of thought

which actually isn’t yet thought itself.

To see a dossier of Reints poems plus interview on this poem, go to here