***
A winter's tale, by Dylan Thomas
(First published 1945.)
It is a winter's tale
That the snow blind twilight ferries over the lakes
And floating fields from the farm in the cup of the vales,
Gliding windless through the hand folded flakes,
The pale breath of cattle at the stealthy sail,
And the stars falling cold,
And the smell of hay in the snow, and the far owl
Warning among the folds, and the frozen hold
Flocked with the sheep white smoke of the farm house cowl
In the river wended vales where the tale was told.
Once when the world turned old
On a star of faith pure as the drifting bread,
As the food and flames of the snow, a man unrolled
The scrolls of fire that burned in his heart and head,
Torn and alone in a farm house in a fold
Of fields. And burning then
In his firelit island ringed by the winged snow
And the dung hills white as wool and the hen
Roosts sleeping chill till the flame of the cock crow
Combs through the mantled yards and the morning men
Stumble out with their spades,
The cattle stirring, the mousing cat stepping shy,
The puffed birds hopping and hunting, the milkmaids
Gentle in their clogs over the fallen sky,
And all the woken farm at its white trades,
He knelt, he wept, he prayed,
By the spit and the black pot in the log bright light
And the cup and the cut bread in the dancing shade,
In the muffled house, in the quick of night,
At the point of love, forsaken and afraid.
(...)
***
Det blir faktiskt ett nytt diktexempel från Elaine Feinstein under rubriken "London-Hong Kong". Därför kör jag en repris på de korta biografiska data som jag publicerade 16 oktober.
Elaine Feinstein (f. 1930) är en poet, romanförfattare och levnadstecknare. Hon har fått många priser, bland annat en Cholmondeley Award for Poetry, Society of Authors', Wingate and Arts Council Awards, the Daisy Miller Prize för sin experimentella roman The Circle, och en hederstitel från University of Leicester. Hon har rest över hela världen för att läsa sina dikter, och hennes böcker har översatts till de flesta europeiska språk; också ryska, kinesiska, japanska och koreanska. Hennes tolkade dikter av Marina Tsvetajeva, en New York Times Book of the Year, har förblivit i tryck sedan 1971. Källa: Carcanet Press
*
A visit, by Elaine Feinstein
(Published in Poetry London, Autumn 2003.)
I still remember love like another country
with an almost forgotten landscape
of salty skin and a dry mouth. I think
there was always a temptation to escape
from the violence of that sun, the sudden
insignificance of ambition,
the prowl of jealousy like a witch's cat.
Last night I was sailing in my sleep
like an old seafarer, with scurvy
colouring my thoughts, there was moonlight
and ice on green waters.
Hallucinations. Dangerous nostalgia.
And early this morning you whispered
as if you were lying softly at my side:
Are you still angry with me? And spoke my
name with so much tenderness, I cried.
I never reproached you much
that I remember, not even when I should;
to me, you were the boy in Ravel's garden
who always longed to be good,
as the forest creatures knew, and so do I.
***
Även kvällens tredje poet har förekommit förut i bloggen, fast då får vi gå tillbaka till januari 2015.
Alison Brackenbury föddes 1953 i Gainsborough, Lincolnshire . Hon läste engelska på St Hugh College, Oxford, och har arbetat som bibliotekarie vid en teknisk högskola (1976-1983), sedan har hon arbetat som kontorsassistent (1985-1989). Från 1990 fram till sin pensionering 2012 var hon direktör i familjeföretaget som sysslar med metallbearbetning. Källa: Poetry Archive
*
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| Northern Lapwing |
Lapwings, by Alison Brackenbury
(Published in Poetry London, Spring 2008.)
They were everywhere. No. Just God or smoke
is that. They were the backdrop to the road,
my parents’ home, the heavy winter fields
from which they flashed and kindled and uprode
the air in dozens. I ignored them all.
‘What are they?’ ‘Oh – peewits – ’ Then a hare flowed,
bounded the furrows. Marriage. Child. I roamed
round other farms. I only knew them gone
when, out of a sad winter, one returned.
I heard the high mocked cry ‘Pee – wit’, so long
cut dead. I watched it buckle from vast air
to lure hawks from its chicks. That time had gone.
Gravely, the parents bobbed their strip of stubble.
How had I let this green and purple pass?
Fringed, plumed heads (full name, the crested plover)
fluttered. So crowned cranes stalk Kenyan grass.
Then their one child, their anxious care, came running,
squeaked along each furrow, dauntless, daft.
Did I once know the story of their lives,
do they migrate from Spain? or coasts’ cold run?
And I forgot their massive arcs of wing.
When their raw cries swept over, my head spun
With all the brilliance of their black and white
As though you cracked the dark and found the sun.
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