Tropical Myth
The rain flung its net over the forest,
trapped the drought’s demon.
Lightning lifted its lantern up high,
flickered, went out, and flared again,
until it was all over and the trees shook off the rain.
Then everything turned clear.
The apes wove
the rising moon
into a loosely braided basket of lianas.
But it broke free,
and dropped embers
on the howling caraya monkeys in the branches
of the mora trees.
And that’s how fireflies were born.
trapped the drought’s demon.
Lightning lifted its lantern up high,
flickered, went out, and flared again,
until it was all over and the trees shook off the rain.
Then everything turned clear.
The apes wove
the rising moon
into a loosely braided basket of lianas.
But it broke free,
and dropped embers
on the howling caraya monkeys in the branches
of the mora trees.
And that’s how fireflies were born.
Tropisk MytRegnet kastade sitt nät över Skogen
fångade torkans demon. Blixten höll lyktan högt, flämtade, slocknade, tändes på nytt tills det hela var över och träden skakade sin väta. Allt blev klart igen. Aporna flätade in den stigande månen i en gles korg av lianer. Den flydde därur men tappade glöder på den vrålande carayan och på mohraträdens grenar. Så skapades eldflugorna. |
Sea Wind
The sea wind sways over the endless oceans--
opens its wings night and day,
rises and falls
over the desolate swaying floor of the everlasting seas.
It’s almost morning
or nearly evening
and the sea wind feels on its face—the land wind.
Buoys ring their morning and evening bells,
the smoke of a coal boat
or the smoke of Phoenician pitch fades away on the horizon,
a solitary jellyfish rocks endlessly on its glistening blue roots.
It’s almost evening, nearly morning.
opens its wings night and day,
rises and falls
over the desolate swaying floor of the everlasting seas.
It’s almost morning
or nearly evening
and the sea wind feels on its face—the land wind.
Buoys ring their morning and evening bells,
the smoke of a coal boat
or the smoke of Phoenician pitch fades away on the horizon,
a solitary jellyfish rocks endlessly on its glistening blue roots.
It’s almost evening, nearly morning.
HavsvindenOver ändlösa oceaner framgungar havsvinden--
breder ut sina vingar i nattan och dagen, höjer och sänker sig över de eviga havens ödsliga gungande golv. Det nalkas morgonen eller det nalkas aftonen och havsvinden känner i sitt ansikte—landvinden. Klockbojarna tona morgon och aftonsånger, en kolångares rök eller en fenicisk beckelds rök dunstar vid horisonterna, ensam manet gungar med blålysande rötter tidlös omkring. Det nalkas afton eller morgon. |
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Harry Martinson (1904-1978) was one of Sweden’s most distinguished twentieth-century writers, producing numerous books of poetry, novels, essays, autobiographies, plays, and radio dramas. He was the first poet of the Swedish working classes to be elected to the esteemed Swedish Academy, and in 1974 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, sharing it with Swedish novelist Eyvind Johnson.
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Robert Hedin is the author, translator, and editor of more than two dozen books of poetry, most recently At the Great Door of Morning: Selected Poems and Translations (Copper Canyon Press) and, as translator, The Mountains of Kong: New & Selected Prose Poems of Dag T. Straumsvag (Assembly Press). He is co-founder and former director of the Anderson Center, a residential artist retreat in Red Wing, Minnesota.
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