Danish:
Landskaber
At.
At gå.
At gå baglæns i egne fodspor.
Skridt: Navn.
Gang: Bevægelige navne.
Du spurgte mig, om jeg havde lyst til at gå en tur,
Og spørgsmålet
forgrenede sig ud i landskabet.
Landskabet prøver sin stemme på os,
det prøver at udtale
vores fremmedartede navne,
men vi er heller ikke i stand til
at formulere dét. Hvad vil du vide?
Det siger: ”Vær ikke bange, bliv her.”
Vi siger: ”Vi er her allerede.”
Æbletræerne blomstrer selvindlysende
og lærer os at se med ord.
Danish audio! They had it on the website I found the poem on, check it out. Pretty cool.
Poem’s legit translation here. It’s interesting to look at it and see that just from the punctuation and form of the poem I ended up writing a very similar poem. I even added my title after finishing it, which is a direct translation of his poem, and I wrote it without looking at his title.
English:
Landscape.
Out.
Out there.
Out there the wind blows.
Stand: leave.
Walk: cross the grass.
Feel the greenness, let your feet, so bare,
Absorb it
And go and walk without stopping.
Look out over the hills,
See their outline
So much like the wind,
Become an explorer and
See it for the first time. Do you see it?
And say: “Here, here is where I live.”
The land says: “Here will be here.”
Wait and listen but no more words will come
And so return inside.
For audio to someone else’s poem, i chose Sean’s “Willows,” but archive.org is not working right now… refuses to establish a url for it.
