amor matris

They’d got going with their female chatter
with coffee and three kinds of home-baked,
            with a little cognac to boot
–Well, he was so sassy when he was little,
said the wife and shook her silent head
            coiffed in a grey permanent.
–he scampered about, teasing the farmers,
smacked the cows out of their tethering pins
            chasing them all over the place
along with the other boys from the village down there,
and they put wheelbarrows up on the roof
            New Year’s Eve. -

Well and then the boys come and yell out there:
He eats earth! He goes and eats the earth!
Then I called him inside and said, you scruffy little boy!
            Open your mouth -
            and I look down into it
            and in there I saw:
It was like a quite early morning
when you get on with the housework
while the fields of barley slowly billow
            up over the hills
and the wind sounds through the red tops, into the woods
and out to the coast, where the swells leave the land
in streaks of foam, combing out
            towards the line of the sky,
and there, racing clouds with squalls, turning
            as though you were stirring them
the horizon crumpling up and sinking
            down under me

and bang, it was night’s gloom all around
Charles’ Wain wheeling past, sinking,
a red star, a blue star, leapt forth
            melting together
and all the stars of the heavens plunged
            and stuck inside me
it was there, in me, there was a kicking now,
            it broke out
and out of the void, a flame thrusting out
            consuming everything and me
            my whole life in him…
            And now he is gone -
She sat amongst them like a deaf-mute.
            Then she left.

© Jørgen Sonne. Translation copyright © GSW