OLAV H. HAUGE ~

Mountains Don't Attract Me Anymore

The mountains don't attract me anymore.

I've lived long enough between cold snowfields.

I still find my way in the woods, listen

to fall wind, and stop at the forest ponds,

engage with streams. Even late in the year

you can find good berries there.

You have to cross mountains if that's not enough.

Peaks stand there, so you know where you are.

______________________

Olav H. Hauge

The Dream We Carry

translated by Robert Bly

Copper Canyon Press, 2008

ROBERT BLY ~

 

Dec. 23, 1926 ~ Nov. 21, 2021

Snowfall In The November Afternoon

I
The grass is half-covered with snow.
It was the sort of snowfall that starts in late afternoon,
And now the little houses of the grass are growing dark.

II
If I could reach down, near the earth,
I could take handfuls of darkness!
A darkness that was always there, which we never noticed.

III
As the snow grows heavier, the cornstalks fade farther away,
And the barn moves nearer to the house.
The barn moves all alone in the growing storm.

IV
The barn is full of corn, and moving toward us now,
Like a hulk blown toward us in a storm at sea;
All the sailors on deck have been blind for many years. 

"Snowfall In The November Afternoon" by Robert Bly, from Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems.

 © Harper Flamingo, 1999

ROLF JACOBSEN ~

 

Guardian Angel

I am the bird that flutters against your window in the morning,

and your closest friend, whom you can never know,

blossoms that light up for the blind.

I am the glacier shining over the woods, so pale,

and heavy voices from the cathedral tower.

The thought that suddenly hits you in the middle of the day

and makes you feel so fantastically happy.

I am the one you have loved for many years.

I walk beside you all day and look intently at you

and put my mouth against your heart

though you're not aware of it.

I am your third arm, and your second

shadow, the white one

whom you cannot accept,

and who can never forget you.

Moon and Apple

When the apple tree blooms

the moon comes often like a blossom,

paler than any of them

shining over the tree.

It is the ghost of the summer,

the white sister of the blossoms who returns to drop in on us,

and radiate peace with her hands

so that you shouldn't feel too bad when the hard times come.

For the Earth itself is a blossom, she says,

on the star tree,

pale and with luminous

ocean leaves.

Sssh

Sssh the sea says

sssh the small waves at the shore say, sssh

not so violent, not

so haughty, not

so remarkable.

Sssh

say the tips of the waves

crowding around the headland's

surf. Sssh

they say to people

this is our earth

our eternity.

__________________________

Twenty Poems

Rolf Jacobsen

Translated by Robert Bly

Seventies Press 1977

ROBERT BLY ~

LOOKING FOR DRAGON SMOKE ~

A R C H I V E 

 R E A D





White Pine Press
2019

THE WISDOM OF FAIRY TALES ~

The quality of this new book is an

unfortunate piece of junk, for $27 mind you,

and however slight, it is Robert Bly, much worth

a read and one would have hoped after Bly has given publishers

a good cash crop of his many subjects over decades: poetry, translations,

essays, and many years as a publisher himself at his Fifties, Sixties,

Seventies, and all the books were well made and handsome,

why not give the old wise man a book to last!
Bly has lost none of his adventurous self.




Henry Holt
2018

OLAV H. HAUGE ~

The Everyday




The great storms

are behind you now.

Back then you never asked

why you were or

where you came from, where you were going,

you were simply a part of the storm,

the fire.

But it's possible to live

in the everyday as well,

the quiet gray day,

to plant potatoes, rake leaves,

or haul brush.

There's so much to think about here in this world,

one life's not enough.

After work you can roast pork

and read Chinese poetry.

Old Laertes cleared brambles

and hoed around his fig trees,

and let the heroes battle it out at Troy.








Erratic Boulder




What an extraordinary place

to settle on,

on a ledge, poised

on the brink.

Don't you value your own success?







Let Me Be Like the Dung Beetle




Sorrow has settled over me

and weighs me down in a warm straw bed.

Let me at least move,

test my strength, lift this slab of sod —

let me be like the dung beetle

in spring when it digs itself out from the dung heap.







Poem




If you can make a poem

a farmer finds useful,

you should be happy.

A blacksmith you can never figure out.

The worst to please is a carpenter.







This Is the Dream




This is the dream we carry through the world

that something fantastic will happen

that it has to happen

that time will open by itself

that doors shall open by themselves

that the heart will find itself open

that mountain springs will jump up

that the dream will open by itself

that we one early morning

will slip into a harbor

that we have never known.

[RB]







Not By Car, Not By Plane 




Not by car,

not by plane —

by neither haysled

nor rickety cart

— or even by Elijah's chariot!

You'll never get farther than Basho.

He got there by foot.







Animal Grave




Just a hollow

in the ground now,

sunk down,

stones have covered it over,

earth and leaves

have filled it

in.

You pause a moment,

it's hardly

worth noticing,

a deer hoof

would barely

trip over it

— not now. 







Mountains Don't Attract Me Anymore




The mountains don't attract me anymore.

I've lived long enough between cold snowfields.

I will find my way in the woods, listen

to fall wind, and stop at the frozen ponds,

engage with streams. Even late in the year

you can find good berries there.

You have to cross mountains if that's not enough.

Peaks stand there, so you know where you are.


[RB] 







How Long Did You Sleep?




Dare you do this —

open your eyes

and look around?

Yes, you're here

here in this world,

you're not dreaming,

it's just as

you see it, things here

are like this.

Like this?

Yes, just like this,

not otherwise.

How long did you sleep?







I Pass the Arctic Circle




A man on the train points out the cairn on the mountain.

We're passing the Arctic Circle, he says.

At first we don't see any difference,

to the north the land looks the same,

but we know where we're headed.

I wouldn't have noticed this little event

if I hadn't, one of these days, passed seventy.





______________________________

 OLAV H. HAUGE
(Norway 1904~1994)

The Dream We Carry

selected and Last Poems
translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin
Copper Canyon Press 2008


All translations above by Robert Hedin except where noted "RB" [Robert Bly]


 

 

EARTH ~

TALKING INTO THE EAR OF A DONKEY



I have been talking into the ear of a donkey.

I have so much to say! And the donkey can't wait

To feel my breath stirring the immense oats

Of his ears. "What has happened to the spring,"

I cry, "and our legs that were so joyful

In the bobblings of April?" "Oh, never mind

About all that," the donkey

Says, "Just take hold of my mane, so you

Can lift your lips closer to my hairy ears."



ROBERT BLY
from Talking into the Ear of a Donkey
(Norton 2011)

everyone wants his, her, its ears rubbed or whispered into ~ here's a photograph I took one spring in new mexico

photo © bob arnold