Knud Sørensen was born in 1928 in Hjøring, Denmark. For many years he was a land surveyor. He is the author of a number of distinguished volumes of poetry. He also has written prose.

Naturally

I have always known
my tree out there
doesn’t grow into heaven, because
as the growth has steadily
grown heavy
taken up mostly
with the laying of ring upon ring
there is no longer the height
that extends, the trunk
has lost the urge
to impart its plenitude
to the higher levels
yet sometimes

it is as though
heaven loses patience
clustering
in grey clumps
accumulating at the tree’s very top
it is then

I get the urge
to clamber into heaven
up over the branch
that was conceived as a bolt
for the eastern end
of a hammock, past
the woodpecker holes I know, past
the remains of the Jackdaw’s nest,
which now after many years
is bereft of sound, because
the branch was, a morning in may
the plaything of a pheasant,
and further up

I want to clamber into heaven
to see at last
what is on the other side
so that I have something real to report
when I come down again
and the next line
gets written.

From the collection of poems, “Naturligvis” 2009

Copyright © Knud Sørensen. Translation copyright © TCR