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ABSENTIA ANIMI (Nathan 1982, pp.53)

 

In the fall

In the fall when you say goodbye

In the fall when all gates stand open

toward meaningless pastures

where unreal mushrooms rot

and watery wheel ruts run on their way

to nothing, and a snail is on its way

a tattered butterfly is on its way

to nothing, which is a bloomed-out rose

the smallest and homeliest. And the daddy-long-legs,

those idiotic devils

delicate-limbed, drunken in the evening lamplight

and the lamp itself softly hums

in the light’s negative sea, thought’s polar sea

in long waves

silently frothing foam

of series divided by series

from nothing through nothing to nothing

thesis antithesis synthesis abrasax abraxas Thesis

(like the sound of a sewing machine)

And the spiders spin their webs in the quiet night

and crickets chirr

Meaningless.

Unreal. Meaningless.

In the fall

It rustles in my poem

Words do their duty and lie there

Dust falls over them, dust or dew

till the wind swings up and drops (them) down

(and) elsewhere

he who partout seeks the meaning of everything

long ago found

that the meaning of rustling is rustling

which in itself is something quite distrinct from

wet rubber boots in leaves

distracted footsteps through the carpet of the park

of leaves, affectionately sticking

on wet rubber boots, absent-minded steps

You are wandering off, losing yourself

Don’t be in such a rush

Stop a little

Wait

in the fall when

in the fall when all gates

then it happens that in the last slanted ray

after a day’s rain

with long pauses hesitating

as if caught in the act

a left-over thrush sings in a tree top

for nothing, for the sake of his throat. You see

his tree top rise against the pale fond of the sky

beside a solitary cloud. And the cloud floats

like other clouds but also left over, hors saison

and its very essence long since elsewhere

and in itself (like the song) already something

other than

 

Eternal rest

Meaningless. Unreal.

Meaningless. I

sing sit here

about the sky about a cloud

I wish nothing more for myself

I wish myself a long way off

I am far off (among the echoes of evening)

I am here

Thesis antithesis abrasax

You also I

 

O far far away

there swims in the bright sky

a cloud over the crwn af a tree

in happy unawareness!

O deep down in me

from the surface of the eye of black pearl

is reflected in happy half-awareness

a picture of a cloud!

It is not this that is

It is something else

It exists in what is

but is not this that is

It is something else

 

O far far away

in what is distant

there is something close!

O deep down in me

in what is near

there is something distant

something remotely near

in what is here yet remote

something neither nor

in what is either or:

neither cloud nor picture

neither picture nor picture

neither cloud nor cloud

neither neither nor nor

but something else!

The only thing that is

is something else!

The only thing that is

in what is

is something else!

The only thing that is

In this that is

Is what in this

Is something else!

(O lullaby of the soul

the song of something else!)

 

O

non sens

non sentiens non

dissentiens

indesinenter

terque quaterque

pluries

vox

vel abracadabra

Abraxas abrasax

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis which becomes thesis again

Meaningless.

Unreal. Meaningless.

And the spider spin their webs in the quiet night

And the crickets chirr

In the fall

 

                                         

               

Most translated poems by Gunnar Ekelöf on seven languages.

 

 

 

  

       

                                                                                                                                           

 Foto: Berndt Klyvare 

 

 

 

LATE HOUR ON EARTH

THE FLOWERS

CHORUS

APOTHEOSIS

 NON SERVIAM

ABSENTIA ANIMI

STROUNTES

WHEN ONE HAS

ALONE AT NIGHT

OPUS INCERTUM