RE-READING INGER CHRISTENSEN ~

 

Re-reading not the poetry this time

which is wonderful and immense,

but the poet's essays, slim book, and overall

her background and working methods as a

writer. A poet one can put beside your

reading of Newton and Blake, and no fooling.

[ BA ]

New Directions

RE-READING INGER CHRISTENSEN ~

from alphabet



10


June nights exist, June nights exist,

the sky at long last as if lifted to heavenly

heights, simultaneously sinking, as tenderly as

when dreams can be seen before they are dreamed; a space

as if dizzied, as if filled with whiteness, an hourless



chiming of insects and dew, and no one in

this gossamer summer, no one comprehends that

early fall exists, aftertaste, afterthought;

just these reeling sets of restless ultrasounds

exist, the bat's ears of jade

turned toward the ticking haze;

never has the tilting of the planet been so pleasant,

never the zine-white nights so white,



so defencelessly dissolved, gently ionized and

white, never the limit of invisibility so nearly

touched; June, June, your Jacob's ladders,

your sleeping creatures and their dreams exist,

a drift of galactic seed between

earth so earthly and sky so heavenly,

the vale of tears so still, so still, and tears

sinking, sinking like groundwater back



into earth; Earth; Earth in its trajectory

around the sun exists, Earth on its journey

along the Milky Way, Earth on its course with

its cargo of jasmine, jasper, iron,

iron curtains, omens, jubilation, Judas's kiss

kissed right and left, and virgin anger in

the streets, Jesus of salt; with the shadow of the

jacaranda over the river, with gyrfalcons, jet planes,

and January in the heart, with Jacopo della Quercia's

well Fonte Gaia in Siena and with July

heavy as a bomb, with domestic brains

heart defects, quaking grass and strawberries

the ironwood's roots in the earthworn earth



Earth song by Jayadeva in his mystical

poem from the 12th century, Earth with

the coastline of consciousness blue, with nests where

fisherbird herons exist, with their grey-blue arching

backs, or where bitterns exist, cryptic

and shy, or night herons, egrets,

with the wingbeat variations of hedge sparrows, cranes

and doves; Earth exists with Jullundur, Jabalpur and

the Jungfrau, Jambo, Jogjakarta,

with duststorms, Dutchman's breeches

with water and land masses jolted by tremors

with Judenburg, Johannesburg, Jerusalem's Jerusalem





_______________________
Inger Christensen
alphabet
translated by Susanna Nied
New Directions
2001





Even for New Directions, every Inger Christensen book is a knockout

INGER CHRISTENSEN ~

integrities





1

as sand vanishing

to nothing in wind

have any save none

lived for so long


I ran to meet you

dying on







2  

as light that can never

see itself

as none can lie still

falling free



I see your eyes

see







3

as water that bears

itself to death

you give what is yours

time that goes



semen

tears







4

as the grass growing

into your body

the body withering

into its mind



mind spreading out

over skin







5

as warmth as a summer

remembered to emptiness

we dream of joy

unknown unguessed



and into us looked

something else than ourselves







6

as paper at rest

while a word passes

sorrow gone white

joy in its blackness



I want to know nothing

you walk by my side







7  

as snow in its purity

white and alone

only a few days

only a few



and ever

the earth returns







8

as the bed opening

and closing open

darkness and light

I am cold I am hot



the body preserves

the world








___________________

Inger Christensen
It
translated by Susanna Nied
New Directions
2006