#986 - long words and little in between (listening to Finnish poets)

 

18.ix.22

986

3.260

long words and little in between

(listening to Finnish poets and not understanding a word

… well … very few)

two poems

 

 

 

to be no one

 

here in the woods of the words

 

whisper of some animal sad

 

lost scenes

we, in among

 

must make up the creatures ourselves

 

make common cause

 

these funny ears of mine

 

here in the woods of the words

 

a river like this river

the honey gathering

 

guess who?

 

each word is as a clock ticked past

 

it’s pure to be just with the sound

 

sad injustice each animal bears

would weep, if ever come beyond

rubble of these syllables

 

and hearts dance for the bones

 

far enough back, a religion

now we must emerge

 

where I am here, I guess

 

a winter’s worth of dark

self-telling till the dawn

 

 

 

 

 

far enough back

 

there is a wall all the way round me

night falls in the poem

 

a restless sleep

to keep them off

we only have sharp sticks

 

they come!

once we might have blocked our ears

 

the words from which these words were mine

and must have been yours too

 

the nestling then

light laughter like rain

 

a wall fallen around our ears

come trumpets tell

 

words like a well

   and slip

in which the face is shown

 

we sink shining like a coin

 

the surface of a moon worn to

 

and crank down the bucket

leaks, on its last legs

 

(a bucket was a kind of wheel

a bucket will be fire)

 

my job to make these flimsy titles

just from a shrug

 

words to cut stone, to moss

and quench

 

for howl and a little remonstrance

 

cannot call them mine at all

nothing survives the telling

     …I mean no one does

 

and after they have their way

                          remain

just these old words still to taste

like something never served before

 

the journey from meaning

leads heart to heart

and leaves us just where we are