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straight down through the fire
Jun. 28th, 2010 09:34 pm"You have 41 new and 6 old messages..."
Staying in touch is not exactly my forte. Or, evidently, answering the phone.
But here is a summary: I am having a terrible year, and I have realised that sitting around doing nothing to improve my life is probably not the best course of action, especially when I can barely pay the rent. Also I really need to find a job.
Maybe I will also start writing more about it, though it will probably be the very boring navel-gazing self-incriminating sort of writing.
But meanwhile here is a poem (well part of a poem, really) from the only poet I seem to read anymore, Inger Christensen.
-
Following the sleepwalkers' trail now
on beneath the high plain's
broad balsam skies
across an icelocked lake
along a windgrown isle
straight down through the fire
straight out through the snow
wrapped in the cloak of the wind
baked in the bread of the sun
thwarted long-lasting precise
breathed into the stone-mountain's ice
over the glassblades' spires
under the root system's sores
out through the permafrost membrane
in through the iceplant's hairs
rechristened in mountain coal
cupped in the high tarn's eye
around a sunburst's arms
between a light-chasm's thighs
borne in the mountain king's jewel chest
exalted, select, and fine
preserved in the cradle of air
gone on the rainbow's paths
in through the shore lark's egg
out through the sunlight's wall
they silently travel
the Milky Way's dust
they set up their tents
in the leaves of the stars
the chicory blooms
so endlessly blue
as if no one were
anything except small
I sit myself down
with my wide-awake doll
whose eyes made of glass
are so strange and so fair
my mother comes out
with a steaming bowl
some meat she has warmed
at the North Star's fire
I talk with the doll
whose face looks like mine
about the good luck
that we cannot lose
so that we suddenly
are born, come to be
so that we all at once
meet others, increase
we borrow some fire
that's beginning to catch
as if we ourselves
had been rendered from death
as if even stars
at a touch could grow soft
-
Maybe it will serve as a mission statement of sorts.
Staying in touch is not exactly my forte. Or, evidently, answering the phone.
But here is a summary: I am having a terrible year, and I have realised that sitting around doing nothing to improve my life is probably not the best course of action, especially when I can barely pay the rent. Also I really need to find a job.
Maybe I will also start writing more about it, though it will probably be the very boring navel-gazing self-incriminating sort of writing.
But meanwhile here is a poem (well part of a poem, really) from the only poet I seem to read anymore, Inger Christensen.
-
Following the sleepwalkers' trail now
on beneath the high plain's
broad balsam skies
across an icelocked lake
along a windgrown isle
straight down through the fire
straight out through the snow
wrapped in the cloak of the wind
baked in the bread of the sun
thwarted long-lasting precise
breathed into the stone-mountain's ice
over the glassblades' spires
under the root system's sores
out through the permafrost membrane
in through the iceplant's hairs
rechristened in mountain coal
cupped in the high tarn's eye
around a sunburst's arms
between a light-chasm's thighs
borne in the mountain king's jewel chest
exalted, select, and fine
preserved in the cradle of air
gone on the rainbow's paths
in through the shore lark's egg
out through the sunlight's wall
they silently travel
the Milky Way's dust
they set up their tents
in the leaves of the stars
the chicory blooms
so endlessly blue
as if no one were
anything except small
I sit myself down
with my wide-awake doll
whose eyes made of glass
are so strange and so fair
my mother comes out
with a steaming bowl
some meat she has warmed
at the North Star's fire
I talk with the doll
whose face looks like mine
about the good luck
that we cannot lose
so that we suddenly
are born, come to be
so that we all at once
meet others, increase
we borrow some fire
that's beginning to catch
as if we ourselves
had been rendered from death
as if even stars
at a touch could grow soft
-
Maybe it will serve as a mission statement of sorts.
