The palm at the end of the mind, beyond the last thought, rises in the bronze distance. A gold feathered bird sings in the palm, without human meaning, without human feeling, a foreign song. You know then that it is not the reason that makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine. The palm stands on the edge of space. The wind moves slowly in the branches. The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Up they soar

I

Up they soar, the planet's butterflies,
pigments from the warm body of the earth,
cinnabar, ochre, phosphor yellow, gold
a swarm of basic elements aloft.

Is this flickering of wings only a shoal
of light particles, a quirk of perception?
Is it the dreamed summer hour of my childhood
shattered as by lightning lost in time?

No, this is the angel of light, who can paint
himself as dark mnemosyne Apollo,
as copper, hawkmoth, swallowtail.

I see them with my blurred understanding
as feathers in the coverlet of haze
in Brajcino Valley's noon-hot air.

---Inger Christensen
translated by Susanna Nied
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