MYSTERIOUS BRIDGE With my lipstick a poet from Cyprus is reading her poems in Turkish. A woman asking to borrow my lipstick is one second more overarching of borders than driving from one country to another. My lipstick now speaks on her lips. Suddenly I'm one kiss closer to her language. With my lipstick she is reading a poem about a man who is like a pendulum. He sways incessantly between two women. That could have been my life my lipstick was reading poems about. An arrow would have kissed the back of his neck. THE ROAD ANYONE CAN GO I go led by sleepless nerve paths in front of my shadow, traverse dense traffic, find a passable path go right, left, cross bridges over streams and fords, reach a track I want to follow. The straight path is not the shortest one. The air is chilly and raw, the landscape is lit by the earliest morning sun, cold and heat proliferate at once. Now is the time, I go lured by dreams where birds migrate. Notice a sharp odour of plants that grew once, hear sounds purring of before. What does the road want of me? Look out across the vast terrain with its network of tracks and scents. Fear is always there, like this a pupil opens. The road changes pace, keeps me awake - I branch, collect myself mark on the map of the future a route bound for uncertainty.
from Trækfuglens kompas, 2010
translated from Danish by David McDuff
2 comments:
Tafdrup is great, as usual! Thank you for sharing the translations!
I'm aiming to translate some more of the book, so watch this space.
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