sunnuntai 11. kesäkuuta 2023

TRANSLATING URSULA K. LE GUIN'S POEM WHILE WAITING FOR THE WASHING MACHINE TO FINISH

Another couple of mugs of coffee to push
through yet another poem, half an hour,
forty-five minutes, as the washing machine
goes through its program as I do mine,
it makes dirty clothing wet and clean;
and I take images and keep them more
or less intact, here's the High Desert
in a tongue alien to the landscape
crafted by the poet, and for it none
the cleaner. But then, that language -
wasn't it a language of Jutland and
language of Frisia before it rowed
to British shores, mated, got a French
arrow in the eye, sailed to Turtle
Island, went through the heart of it,
renamed the old desert from wagon
caravans, pointed the blades of
cavalry swords, shining in the sun,
announced "This land is mine",
and left it all dirty, blood drying
like silence on the parched rocks?
Has this poem washed away
some of the encrusting gore?

11.06.2023


#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse 

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