Monday, September 23, 2013

Stilheden efter os / The Silence After Us. Pia Tafdrup. Translated by David McDuff


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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