Poems for Jan. 31/Feb. 1

 Considering a position as a new planet: Ronda Broatch; Poems by Rolf Jacobsen, translated by Robert Bly, Robert Hedin, and Roger Greenblatt taken from:  The roads have come to an end now : selected and last poems of Rolf Jacobsen (2001) 839.821 J17r

Apologies for a few typos:  p. 2: last stanza of Guardian Angel: I am your third arm    p. 3: Last stanza of Memories of Horses: Capital I : In huge trees.   p. 4: The Fireflies: 4th line should have a period after plane tree.  Capitalized next sentence:  It was then...                 Breathing Exercises: typo first line:  If you go out FAR enough; omission of "out" in last line of second stanza.  Omission of last line:  two words introduced by the em-dash:  —of yourself.

Nutshell:

Considering... 

This poem in the shape of a crescent moon, allows the reader space to imagine floating through space, indeed, considering not just position but this idea of a "new" planet.  The form reminded Judith of  "The Mouse's tail" http://bootless.net/mouse.html, the shape poems of George Herbert (1593-1633) such as “Easter Wings” and “The Altar,” written in the shape of wings and an altar and the E.E. Cummings poem Pity this busy monster, Manunkind https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/pitmonster.html which ends, listen: there's a hell/of a good universe next door; let's go.

We all chuckled at the mention of "banished Pluto", enjoyed the toe/hold and other line-breaks and the seemingly impossible choice either exiting our solar system, or drawing closer to our sun.  The light touch of slant rhyme in ellipses and skipping, suggestive doesn't support such a dour consideration of position,

although wither, shivering, banished  certainly are scarcely reassuring.  Perhaps the hint of short i in ascension, suspension, revolution, rivals the long I in silent, and rise. 

The title has a novel twist on "position", as in viewpoint.  

Poems by Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994)  He is one of Scandinavia’s most distinguished poets, who launched poetic modernism in Norway with his first book, Jord og jern in 1933.   One senses a perfect match between the translators and different aspects of this fine Norwegian poet in the above-mentioned book, with poems selected from books dated 1935, 1951, 1954.   Perhaps I gravitate toward poems that seem to give reassuring kisses from angels, and indeed, in the poems I selected,  his images and way of looking at the world restore a confidence in some spiritual bond between all living beings in the natural world.

Translations by Robert Bly

Guardian Angel: 

The image of an angel "putting my mouth against your heart" is one none of us could ignore.   The Norwegian munnen translated in this poem as mouth is translated in the next as lips, but in both cases seems connected to a depth of spiritual breathing.   In the final stanza, how does Jacobsen means "white shadow"? And why can we not accept it?  Is it that "heavenly" shadows, unlike the dark ones on Earth, is something we cannot believe in?  However we understand this, there is this sense of presence, whether or not we are lucky enough to perceive it, that hits us in the middle of the day, makes us so "fantastically" happy... It will never abandon us... "it can never forget you."

—When they sleep:  the em-dash in the title matches the last line, as if an offering of a breath, a prayer.  Can you imagine if we could speak to each other this way?   Very reminiscent of these lines:                    The Sandman comes, the Sandman comes

Child, will he visit you tonight?

He comes beneath the pale moonlight

The Sandman comes

It is curious that he uses the pronoun "they"-- as if there is a distance between "us" and where we might want to be.  "If only we could speak to one another then" -- and then the lovely final prayer that implies a wish for this "language of sleep" to be part of our state of being.

Snail: Lovely evocation of the delicate relationship of one small creature, not just carrying his house on his back, but the music he respectfully offers as he "kisses the earth". The book The Sound of the Wild Snail Eating came up again. https://www.elisabethtovabailey.net/

translations by Robert Hedin: 

Are they waiting for a star:  We sensed a continuous movement in the poem as the clouds go through "the wind's doors".  The comment about how different languages and landscapes provide us with very different ways of looking at the world came up.  We don't say, "mother is shaking the pillows" when it snows as in the tale of Frau Holle when she shakes the feather bed. 

There is a poignancy in that final line... Here the wind is preparing this lovely resting place... the "they" here, being the clouds, waiting for something that will make all "right with the world."  Is that not what we do as humans, with our fervent requests?  We look for redemption, answers, but have no idea about "these guests/who never come".  

In Countries Where the Light Has Another Color:  

I mentioned the marvelous book by Ed Yong which goes into how animals use their senses: An Immense World  https://edyong.me/an-immense-world

The discussion revolved around the magic of color perception and how each place has a different color.  

However, the poem plumbs a deeper metaphysical level.  Do we ask ourselves "about the hands who have scattered the reflections of stars across dark waters"? The translation implies that we should.  

Memories of Horses: 

Looking at lines in faces and hands of old people, Jacobsen goes further than physical traces as the invisible quality of memories approaches a mystical realm--a "secret language/cloud, word, wind letters, /all the signs the heart gathers up in the lean year."  We weren't sure how to interpret the "if you are happy" in the penultimate line.  how it interrupts "the wind sketches running children and horses, running in the grass".  Perhaps, if we are at peace, we can see this, see "images of peace in the sides of animals".  Many had the feeling of wind in the steppes of Mongolia.  Rose-Marie felt it captured the way old people take everything in.

The Old Clocks: We are no longer living in villages set amidst farmland.  The tick-tock of it's okay, repeated, reinforces this mild wisdom.  How do we look at time?  Race, as species, but also implication of a time when unhappiness, distress "shrink back like grass /during that earlier period when the Earth was earth.:  The clocks are our guests, as we continue the race.  

Kathy brought up Hedin's book At the Great Door of Morning. 

In the large parks:

lovely eloquence of images as one person mentioned, "Merwinesque, but easier to see."  A sense of humble integrity embracing something as large as awe.

 

Translated by Roger Greenwald

The Fireflies : In this chance snapshot, It was then  is repeated 4 times.  This is not the title, but rather, "The fireflies" -- a beautiful metaphor for seeing love as light in the darkness.  

Breathing Exercise

The repeated If you go out far enough, indeed could be breathing out... a little reminiscent of Whitman, flinging out the soul until it catches, seeking the spheres.