Pia Tafdrup
STILHEDEN EFTER OS
31/12 1999
Der er én dag igen – og et urvildt rum i hjernen vides ud:
Jeg lægger øret mod den varme væg, erindrer min mors hjerte slå,
men hører stemmers summen, sus fra sprog, der er forsvundet nu.
Af sollys flammer Ayers Rock - Uluru - indefra,
af visdom absorberet gennem sekshundrede millioner år ...
Drømt op af jorden ligger kæmpeklippen i et ørkenfladt terræn,
som et isbjerg skyder sin massive ene brøkdel op af vandet,
buldrer flere kilometers klippetop forvitret frem i horisonten.
Ud af mørket synges stenens ryg af fugle i det tørre krat,
fra træer eller redehuller dybt i væggen, indtil farver skifter sind,
og klippen løftes højt af vingeslag, svøbes ind i skrig og sang,
i skarpe morgendufte, i en stilhed klar og endeløs som sletten,
hvor jeg svinder til et korn af støv og hvirvler bort i mængden ...
Vind og vandfald eroderer sandstensklippen, stryger, filer,
sliber labyrinter af strukturer, graver i arkosens fod ovale huler
malet med en hellig skrift, danner spalter, dybe ar og tegn:
Et kranieformet relief, en mund der græder, en der griner skråt ...
Den rødligt brune klippe lytter, giver ekkotoner fra sig, lyd
af dage bag i går; rum som skabtes gennem vandring langs spiral-
og cirkelspor i drømmetider, hvor ting fik navn og eksistens,
og alt det nye blot var hidtil upåagtet, dråber af den ikke sete sværm.
En hallucineret strøm af stemmer når mig gennem væggen,
først som kaos, siden som magneten trækker jernfilspåner til sig,
samler dem i polers svævemønstre, ligesom hjernebarken,
der vil mindes floden mellem mineral og menneske - men sprænges.
Fugle tier, mørket åbner sig og sænkes over ørkensletten;
det bliver oceansort nat og dag igen, klippen ses af os,
der kommer, dechifrerer, danser, dvæler, dør —
det er os, der udgør tiden - tænker jeg i råkold øgleluft,
mens en flygtig gnistregn falder, fuldblodsstjerner i et massestyrt ...
fra: Hvalerne i Paris 2002
THE SILENCE AFTER US
31/12/1999
There is one day left – and a
wild, primeval space in the brain expands:
I put my ear to the warm
wall, remember the beating of my mother’s heart,
but hear the hum of voices,
murmuring of languages now disappeared.
With sunlight Ayers Rock –
Uluru – burns from inside,
With wisdom absorbed through
six hundred million years...
Dreamed up from the earth the
giant rock lies in desert-flat terrain,
like an iceberg its massive
single fragment shoots up from the water,
booming several miles of
weathered peak to the horizon.
Out of the darkness the
stone’s back is sung forth by birds in the dried-up scrub,
from trees or nesting holes
deep in the wall, until colours change their mind,
and the rock is lifted high
by wing-beats, swathed in cries and song,
in pungent morning odours, in
a silence clear and endless as the plain,
where I dwindle to a grain of
dust and whirl away into the cloud.
Wind and waterfall erode the
sandstone rock, whetting, filing,
honing labyrinths of
structures, digging oval holes in the foot of the arkose
painted with a sacred script,
forming fissures, deep veins and signs:
A cranium-shaped relief, one
mouth that weeps, another with a crooked grin...
The reddish brown rock
listens, emits echo-notes, sound
of days behind yesterday;
rooms that were made by walking along spiral-
and circle trails in
dreamt-of times, when things were given names and existence,
and all the new was still as
yet obscure, drops of an unseen swarm.
A hallucinated stream of
voices reaches me through the wall,
first as chaos, then as the
magnet draws iron filings to itself,
gathering them in floating
patterns of poles, like the cortex of the brain,
that wants to remember the river
between mineral and man – but breaks.
Birds are quiet, the darkness
opens and descends on the desert plain;
again it’s ocean-black night,
and day, the rock is seen by us
who arrive, decipher, dance,
dwell, die –
it’s we who make the time – I
think in cold, raw saurian air,
while a fleeting shower of
fire-rain falls, thoroughbred stars in a mass cascade...
Translated by David McDuff
from: The Whales of Paris (2002)
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