Southlands, Northlands

Poems of Winter

Jan 9

This first poem was originally intended to be in haiku form. Fairly quickly I discovered that I was trying to express a little more than I could well fit into three lines. So I turned to another syllable-structured form, the tritriplicata developed by Arjan Tupan. I liked the effect of essentially doubling the first and last lines.

At Dawn

Dawn stillness
Lies deep in the valley.
A flock of doves whirls like a tossed stone
Makes ripples in a pool;
Then stillness.

When I walked out this morning, the sun hadn’t had time to warm the air yet.

It’s such a sharp wind,
I tug my jacket zipper
against last night’s chill.

Regular readers may remember that some weeks ago I posted a translation from German of a small poem about sparrows. My next translation project was a good deal more ambitious and requires a little more explanation.

When I was in my teens, I studied voice for a number of years. I love music, and I love poetry; and it was a special pleasure to sing works which were settings of great poetry. Franz Schubert’s songs in particular are so beautifully nuanced to the lines he set.

But in contrast to the often better-known German poets, there was another song I loved but had no background information for. The music was by the great Finnish composer Jan Sibelius; I had the song only in an English translation and it was in a borrowed book at that. So for years after I returned the book I wondered how I could identify and find the song and the poem.

Late last year I finally discovered it. I found that the original poem, Norden, was not in Finnish but in Swedish, by the poet Johan Ludvig Gruneberg. And of course I had to try my hand at translating it as simple poetry.

With the help of Google Translate, not to mention the fact that Swedish is, after all, a fellow Germanic language, I produced a first, highly unsatisfactory draft. In the process of then stumbling through the original aloud to my sister—despite my absurd pronunciations!—I gained a sense of its highly rhythmic nature. I set the project aside for a while, determined that when I returned to it I would try to capture the very Nordic rhythms.

I’m still not certain whether I’m satisfied with the results, but this is that second attempt. Again, this is a poem which, from a somewhat awkward translation in a song book, I’ve remembered for over thirty years. Some of that, no doubt, was the haunting nature of Sibelius’ musical setting with its marvelous harmonies, but the wistful yet passionate longings are inherent in the poem itself.

This is my best attempt to date.

Norden

Leaves are falling,
Lochs are freezing,
Swans are flying,
Sailing, O sailing,
Sorrow flies southward,
Seeking the refuge,
Yet ever longing,
Plowing the ripples
Far from our waters!
Then shall one eye there
Spy you from palm trees’
Shadows, and wonder:
“How pale you are, swans;
What’s the enchantment
Lies in the Northlands?
One who from Southlands
Longs still, his longing
Seeks for a Heaven.”