Gunnar Ekelof

Friends, those of you who have read my bio below know that I am Swiss, not Swedish. And that if you're looking for great Swedish poetry, look no further than the inimitable Gunnar Ekelof. I reproduce for your edification one of his sublime elegies:

Elegy

by Gunnar Ekelof

from Songs of Something Else

trans. by Leonard Nathan and James Larson


I turned away and everything was changed
The spring thrust out its bird's view eye
From the misty sun straight lines ran to all things
Over the monotonous spans of the telephone wires
clouds loomed like a fire at sea...

Waves
Waves my sisters for whom do you weep
the young god of evening or the shepherd of pain
I write distracted by thought, perhaps I don't remember it
any more
but I believe he was blind
What did he whisper in his sleep under the white membrane
Who really knows, but it seemed to make an impression
on nature
Great tears hung in the trees
and the clouds lolled weeping along the horizons
I write distracted by thought, perhaps I don't remember it
any more
but I believe he was dead
What was it he saw under the dark membrane
Who knows, who knows, but the stones turned themselves in sleep
A temblor shook all the mountains and the sun
turned away
and the sea became bitter
it happened long ago
I don't really know what happened
I remember it only in my feelings
Perhaps it was something else
Perhaps it could have been said in other words
as always everywhere and nowhere
Waves
Waves which hide his traces or hers
all that is written in water and sand