Astrid Hjertenæs Andersen: 'Hestens øye'

 

Hestens øye

 

Dypest

i hestens øye,

det dunkle, det gripende ømme,

 

dypt

bak det såre gjenspeil

av funklende marker og gress,

 

dypt

i et gyllenbrunt landskap

det, jordens vemodigste,

 

gjenser jeg mennesket,

vergeløst, nakent,

gjennomglødet av livet

 

 

The horse’s eye

 

Deepest

in the horse’s eye,

the murkily, poignantly gentle,

 

deep

behind the searing reflection

of glittering fields and grass,

 

deep

in a golden-brown landscape

this, the earth’s most mournful,

 

I see man once more,

naked, defenceless,

incandescent with life

 

Thor Sørheim: 'Ørkenvandring'

 

DESERT JOURNEY

 

We humans came to the Earth far too late

and have missed out on rampant, unbridled volcanoes

and the common sense of glaciers. We must learn from

the insects that buzz around in the shadow of trees

and the black and yellow thrush that builds nests

among blue and defiant lupins in the desert.

When the seed falls onto the ground, it has to wait

for years for a brief heavy shower

to be able to start to grow, and then lie dormant and

wait patiently for the next rainy season. Anyone fleeing

from the desert or using the desert as an escape

has stopped waiting for a sign that is more powerful

than wind and rain, or a cactus that catches fire.

The old trees ask us to remain

for the time it takes to tame a sunbeam.

 

Thor Sørheim: 'Dyrenes ark'

 

THE ANIMALS’ ARK

 

The animals’ own ark sank because the water became polluted,

and thereby whole species of animals died out thousands of years ago.

Mammoths and prehistoric lions, giant vultures

and the mythical sabre-toothed tiger. Nor should we

forget the dire wolf. Not to mention the largest

of all birds we have heard of, the Teratorn, which weighed as much

as a full-grown man. This is a story

of creation and extinction that cannot be rounded off by a dove

with an oily leaf in its beak. The animals drowned in a pool of oil

and were transmuted into an image of themselves, fossils, which

were later found on the sea-bed, and the message they convey

to us today we must write down in our own scriptures.

Thor Sørheim: 'Evig liv'

 

ETERNAL LIFE

 

When we light a candle at the cemetery

or fix a rose to the crash barrier, the dead

live with us as long as we live, and when we die,

the dead die with us, and are remembered by those

who grieve at our passing. Not necessarily all that long, not

necessarily all that much , but enough for us to end in a grave

and feed a few mouths with sandwiches and coffee. That has

a certain worth, and as generations on earth go on remembering

their dead who have remembered their dead, the dead acquire worth..

When we go to the cemetery to look for our dear ones,

we see traces of those who have walked around on this green planet

long before us, and who we will never meet again. For I do not know

of any life after death, only a death in life, and deep down in our grief

it matures as we wander aimlessly under the starry sky:

Is there death on other planets.

 

Thor Sørheim: 'De høyeste trærne'

 

THE TALLEST TREES

 

The tallest trees in the world thrive best in mist

and rain, and scatter their seeds over large, damp areas of land.

On the forest floor beetles and snakes crawl, and the insects

whirr in our nostrils when we follow the paths. The birds

fly upwards between horizontal branches, and the sunset, 

cautiously climbs down the gnarled trunks without ever

quite reaching the bottom, where sorrel, fern and green moss wait

patiently for the rain water to follow suit, leaf by leaf.

The tallest creations on the earth have little to fear,

apart from fire, which can send its storm troops right

into the crown in a few seconds. Then the burnt tree topples down

into the moss, and the cone seeds turn to ash. Only the root

survives, and down in the soil the new shoots start to grow

forming a ring round the fallen tree. From our own experience, or

just as much from bitter loss, we call the new trees the family circle.

 

Thors Sørheim: 'Ikke i nærheten'

 

NOWHERE NEAR

 

The melt water that burrows down into the clay slope

reminds me of the great inland ice that formed

the landscape thousands of years ago. I look at

the igneous rock that has risen from the lava masses and

solidified into pieces of chocolate cake along the new main road,

and millions of years disappear in the rear window.

I can imagine the Big Bang without witnesses.

We were not there, and have no problems about looking

back. But when did our consciousness give us

the answer to the Arctic terns’ long flight in broad daylight

or the inscrutable gaze of the cat from the window sill.

 

Thor Sørheim: 'Novembers årlige tegn'

 

NOVEMBER’S ANNUAL SIGNS

 

The pied woodpecker hacks away at the telegraph pole

in rhythmic frenzy, the world was not created

once and for all, and even though we live because

we were born, we live just as much because as yet

we are not dead. It is a morning for clear mist

and genuine lies, and the world has not yet gone

to the highest bidder. On the fridge door I fix

the night’s dreams with a small magnet,

they will never return.

 

Thor Sørheim: 'System'

 

System

 

We can listen to the silence

in the universe before the earth rises.

We can hear the singing of the flock of sparrows

that never sleep in the thorny fairytale hedge.

We can see clouds of sand lift themselves

over the desert and autumn-yellow leaves

that are whirled up from the lawn.

We can think that

we too are dust, just systematised.

 

Thor Sørheim: 'Ikke langt nok ned'

NOT FAR ENOUGH DOWN

 

The dead have something to say.

A graveyard on Svalbard

which left the young dead with their virus

and betrayal to the keeping of the permafrost

could have been the place

that revealed the secret of the Spanish flu.

 

The dead had their crosses removed.

With solemn care and knife the researchers

cut their way down to the Spanish flu’s victims

who were said to have placed a virus on ice

while drawing their last breath.

 

The dead were taken up in vain.

Not even Svalbard’s cold earth

was enough to hold onto the moment of death.

The dead did not come far enough down.

With the force of their empty lungs

they praised the fragile beauty

called life, and remained silent about our death.

Thor Sørheim: 'Til ettertanken'

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

 

When we tried to find out

how the universe was created, it was

already created. Even if new ideas

are to be gratefully received, there is no point

in constructing obvious theories, genuine proofs

or qualified guesses when it is not within

our mandate to create the universe once again. This is

 

an old truth which we cannot comprehend

unless we subject it to thorough scrutiny. A bang,

a cloud of gas, glowing lava, we search for water

and forget that in many other places in the galaxies’

water is mostly known as ice. What came first in the way

of darkness and light, death and life, and whether truth is

to be anchored in the rebellion of youth or in a loose comet

 

on deck remains to be seen in the night sky. Before we try

to set up an equation that can be demonstrated, the question is,

whether we are to search in the outer extremities, log-stacks

and the painful seconds a child is born, and take care

of our fear that all that is beautiful which

occurs will disappear to another planet

that for a long time has been waiting its turn.