Tria Carmina
med
Louise Glück
(f. 1943)
***
Louise Glück föddes i New York City 1943 och växte upp på Long Island. Hon studerade vid Sarah Lawrence College och Columbia University. Hennes första poesibok, Firstborn (1968), fick ett bra mottagande. Hon krediterades för sin tekniska skicklighet samt för samlingens trovärdiga berättande. Källa: Poetry Foundation
The tree house, by Louise Glück
(From Firstborn. Northwood, Middlesex, 1969.)
The pail droops on chain, rotten,
where the well's been
rinsed with bog, as round and round
the reed-weed rockets down Deer Island
amid frosted spheres of acid: berry pick-
ing. All day long I watched the land break
up into the ocean. Happened long ago,
and lost - what isn't - bits of jetty go
their private ways, or sink, trailing water.
Little's left. Past this window where
my mother's basil drowned
in salad, I can see our orchard, balsams
clenched around their birds. The basil flourished on
neglect. Open my room, trees. Child's come.
***
I en recension av Glücks The triump of Achilles, noterade Wendy Lesser i Washington Post Book World att "direkt är det operativa ordet här: Glücks språk är ständigt okomplicerat, anmärkningsvärt nära talspråket. Men hennes noggranna känsla för rytm och repetition, och hennes specifisering av idiomatiskt svävande fraser, ger hennes dikter en tyngd som är långt ifrån det banala." Källa: Poetry Foundation
Metamorphosis, by Louise Glück
(From The triumph of Achilles. New York : Ecco Press, 1985.)
1. Night
The angel of death flies
low over my father's bed.
Only my mother sees. She and my father
are alone in the room.
She bends over him to touch
his hand, his forehead. She is
so used to mothering
that now she strokes his body
as she would the other children's
first gently, then
inured to suffering.
Nothing is any different.
Even the spot on the lung
was always there.
2. Metamorphosis
My father has forgotten me
in the excitement of dying.
Like a child who will not eat,
he takes no notice of anything.
I sit at the edge of his bed
while the living circle us
like so many tree stumps.
Once, for the smallest
fraction of an instant, I thought
he was alive in the present again;
then he looked at me
as a blind man stares
straight into the sun, since
whatever it could do to him
is done already.
Then his flushed face
turned away from the contract.
3. For my father
I'm going to live without you
as I learned once
to live without my mother.
You think I don't remember that?
I've spent my whole life trying to remember.
Now, after so muck solitude,
death doesn't frighten me,
not yours, not mine either.
And those words, the last time,
have no power over me. I know
intense love always leads to mourning.
For once, your body doesn't frighten me.
From time to time, I run my hand over your face
lightly, like a dustcloth.
What can shock me now? I feel
no coldness that can't be explained.
Against your cheek, my hand is warm
and full of tenderness.
***
I flera av sina diktsamlingar har Louise Glück inspirerats av grekisk och romersk mytologi. Det går att följa sådana trådar i såväl "The triumph of Achilles" som i boken Averno (2006). Romarna trodde att kratersjön Averno i södra Italien var ingången till underjorden.
Glück lyckas på ett mycket trovärdigt sätt sammanväva det mytologiska med en sorts fenomenologisk psykologi. Jag är väldigt förtjust i Averno, hennes tionde bok. Det är också genom den samlingen som hon introduceras på svenska av Rámus förlag. För den svenska översättningen står Jonas Brun. Boken utkom i förra månaden men jag har ännu inte läst den. Avslutningsvis en dikt ur sviten "October" som passar bra in i Louise Glücks "tidskedja".
*
October, by Louise Glück
(From Averno. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006.)
3.
Snow had fallen. I remember
music from an open window.
Come to me, said the world.
This is not to say
it spoke in exact sentences
but that I perceived beauty in this manner.
Sunrise. A film of moisture
on each living thing. Pools of cold light
formed in the gutters.
I stood
at the doorway,
ridiculous as it now seems.
What others found in art,
I found in nature. What others found
in human love, I found in nature.
Very simple. But there was no voice there.
Winter was over. In the thawed dirt,
bits of green were showing.
Come to me, said the world. I was standing
in my wool coat at a kind of bright portal —
I can finally say
long ago; it gives me considerable pleasure. Beauty
the healer, the teacher —
death cannot harm me
more than you have harmed me,
my beloved life.
