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POEMS, 1916
Translated by K. Llewellyn
Kathleyn Llewellyn / Fjordscene Poetry
16-12-2012
EDITH SDERGRAN POEMS, 1916
I saw a tree
Nocturne
A wish
A stripe of sea
God
Violet dusks
Uneasy dreams
I am no woman. I am a neutrum.
I am a child, a page and a quick decision,
I am a laughing stripe of scarlet sun
I am a net for all ferocious fish,
I am a toast to the honour of all women,
I am a step towards spontaneity and ruin,
I am a leap in liberty and self
I am the whisper of blood in the mans ear,
I am the feverish cramp of the soul, the lusts and defenses of the flesh,
I am entry sign to the new paradise.
I am a flame, seeking and bold,
I am a water, deep but daring, all the way up to the knees,
I am fire and water in honest connection on free terms
--
For the sake of my own paleness I love red, blue and yellow,
the great whiteness is sorrowful like the snowy twilight
when Snow-whites mother sat by the window and wished for black and red as well.
The longing of the colours is that of the blood. If you thirst for beauty
you must close your eyes and look into your own heart.
But beauty fears the day and too many stares,
but beauty cannot bear noise and too much commotion
you shall not lead your heart to your lips,
we should not disturb the grand realm of silence and loneliness, -
what is greater to meet than an unsolved riddle with strange features?
Silent shall I be all my life,
a speaker is like the babbling brook that gives itself away;
a lonesome tree shall I be on the plain,
the tree in the forest perishes with longing for storm,
I shall be healthy from head to heel with golden stripes in the blood,
I shall be pure and innocent like a flower licking its lips.
--
Autumn
Black or white?
The stars
Wandering clouds
Unnecessary suffering,
unnecessary waiting,
the world is as empty as your laughter.
The stars are falling
cold and lovely night.
Love smiles in its sleep,
love dreams of eternity
Unnecessary fear, unnecessary pain,
the world is less than nothing,
down into the depths slides from the hand of love
the ring of eternity.
--
Words
Forest darkness
Joycat
We women
Early dawn
Nordic spring
The sun went down over the foam of the sea and the beach slept
and up in the mountains someone was singing
When the words fell into the water they were dead
And the song disappeared behind the firs and the twilight led it away.
When all was silent I only thought
that there was lifeblood on the dark evening-rocks,
dimly did I sense that the song was
about what never returns.
--
Evening
Two goddesses
Closer you felt the pain with the depth in the eyes,
the never invoked,
the best known and least understood of all goddesses,
she who rules over oceans in uproar and sinking ships,
over those who are trapped for a lifetime,
and over the heavy curses which rest with the children in the mothers wombs.
--
Leave
A caught bird
Advice
Sorrows
My soul
Love
Fate said: white you must live or red you shall die!
But my heart decided: red shall I live.
Now I live in the country where all is yours,
death never enters this realm.
All day I sit with my arms resting on the marble of the well,
when Im asked if happiness has been here,
I shake my head and laugh:
happiness is far away, there theres a young woman hemming a childs blanket,
happiness is far away, there theres a man in the forest building himself a hut.
Here the red roses grow around the bottomless wells,
here beautiful days mirror their mild features
and large flowers lose their most beautiful petals
--
Two paths
Three sisters
Lifes sister
At the beach
Life
Hell
The pain