Books from Finland - A literary journal of writing from and about Finland.

Agnosis IV

Set your altar up in the evening,
in the morning clear it away:
the wandering goes on. Don't persuade yourself
       of anything, or anyone else:
fearful forces are epidemic,
no place is sacred
for long.
       Again and again
       the sacred
starts.
       If you happen to be there
don't refuse to see.

a light wind
       stirring a treetop:
a shoal of fish
       in blue abyss

From Hiidentyven (‘Weird calm’, Otava,1984)

•

Against a pale glow

Against a pale glow
engraved in steely frost
an unwavering grey figuration
of black boughs.
I know nothing of a pine tree’s pinings.
My own are close enough,
but this morning no complaints.
Before my eyes a world. Bitter, beautiful.

From Hiidentyven (‘Weird calm’, Otava,1984)

•

A vertical motion
evenly from the earth
up, upwards
skywards
         against the sky
an explosion, a bursting counterthrust
across the skyline
         a crossbough
spreading out
like wings
of wounding, a flight
into freedom
         like
hands, arms:
opening
the breast receives
a sword
a ray
a grain
         from the crossbough,
from its centre
the movement spreads everywhere:
the cotyledon,
the leafage and the ramage, the tip of the tree
the roots:
there's an image in the air.
         The current of time
is running across the crossbough,
flowing through the foliage.

From Hiidentyven (‘Weird calm’, Otava,1984)

•

– on spikelets of hay
near the forest edge
dragonfly wings were trembling
                                  trembling

Back through the forest I make my way.
Depth again – the forest, everything
yesterday, today
synchronic: each trunk
distinct.

From Karu laidunrinne (‘Barren pasturage’, 1989)

•

Through the night
   For Benjamin Britten

Through the midsummer night
quills of angel wings
are piercing wounds, hard

through the winkling of an eye passes
and endless
procession

From Karu laidunrinne (‘Barren pasturage’, 1989)

•

My dream, a brown beast, slipped away into the foliage,
and now, long moments later,
the day’s escaping, at a fast canter –

two lassoes I let fly, at a throw,
one at the disappearing horn of the dream,
one at the day on the run.
A chance in a hundred thousand –
but think of the possible prize:
one loops a dream unicorn,
one loops a golden-horned elk of a day!

From Kaksoiskuva (‘Dual image’, 1982)

•

With unblinking eyes

                                         I've
been in this house
        before,yes,
                but the birds
                         weren't able
                                 to prevent

my entry!
        In the doors
                there were
                        grey mists,
                                the inner rooms
                                        disappearing ino the distance.

A bird, a large one, about
        the size of a man
                came to meet me
                        in the corridor,
                                pushed its head
                                        into a stone slab

in the floor:
        it wanted
                to avoid seeing
                        the infinity of the particles.

It twitched its head out
        when it saw
                a shadow nearing
                        across the slabs, fluttered
                                in front of me,
                                        spreading its downy wings:

blood was puring from its eyes.
        It stopped before me,
                and looked,
                        running with blood, eyes
                                bleeding, stood
                                        and spread its bloodstained downy wings.

I raised my hand, yelled:
        'Bird! You won't stop me!
                The passage through these rooms
                        has to go on
                                into the distance.

Go and crucify yourself!
        The burden I'm carrying is different.
                In these empty rooms
                        I'm carrying
                                the weight
                                        of these empty rooms
                                                into the distance, to eternity.

The pillars are burdening my shoulders,
        the dance is burdening my feet.
                The earth's opening, the mist's
                        coming down. Stand aside!' A shrieking
                                engulfed the room:

the bird flew at me. I walked
        through it, the pillar
                crumbled, pain burst out and
                        with unblinking eyes
                                I stared
                                        into the abyss:

in the stairwell, where
        a dark emptiness was yawning and
                stony, greedy
                        spirits of judgement
                                were blowing a stone horn,

spreading my bleeding wings
        among a forest of pillars
                under a stony sky
                        I was flying.

From Portaikko pilvissä ‘Staircase in the clouds’,1992

Translated by Herbert Lomas

•

On the way home

On the way home
the scent of a limetree,
honeyed.
Warm July night,
darkening toward August.
I can’t help
the moth entranced by light,
the person entranced by darkness.
Yearning for light you turn into a cinder.

On the way home
each one of us flies in her orbit
on a warm July night
calm, the stars not yet out
as the limetree spreads
its scent, the honeyed limetree.

From Hengitys yössä (‘Breathing in the night’, 1995)

•

Above and through everything

Above and through everything
the thin web of life. On an evening like this,
its strands
are stretched to breaking
under the moments’ significance, the light’s
weight. So much empty space,
so much lovely desolation
freed from significance
in us, in the world,
it makes you grow faint.
And here, all dreams have to be dreamed by oneself!
When I am dead, a stone
will dream my dreams.

From Hengitys yössä (‘Breathing in the night’, 1995)

Translated by Anselm Hollo