by Douglas Robinson
The moon is the heel of a limping shoe
in the soft evening sky
before the other
dimmer lights
are out
too tired to cut wood
the sawhorse sagging
the sawblade loose
the axe unruly I junk the tools in the shed
today I walked the highway
shoelaces flopping
the snow hot with light
promised a starry clear night
the sedge by the roadside was a hieroglyphic
something far too far away
language gone beyond
recovery
he says
he's a poet and paws the air like a poet
with his hand when he says
never translate a living language into a dead
a great poet like him
should have known
that no language lives
till it's been turned into a dead one
information society
I stop suddenly
at the well
turn to look
at the evening star
in the merciless night sky
I think that it's the Dog Star
as if the
Nile
had flooded in February
at home I'd decided to cut wood
there are invitations you can refuse only once
(Pentti Saarikoski)
Full moon in February and the snow
is hotter than a midsummer night
(Pentti Saarikoski)
I consider a conjunction
between two impossible clauses
(Pentti Saarikoski)
With their tiny tongues
serpents suck at my ears
so I can hear
the earth's voices
again
Holy
are the red rowan
berries
(Pentti Saarikoski)
If only I could
keep this peace
where beasts huddle
on my shoulders
this mountain dance floor
(Pentti Saarikoski)
I stuffed the trash
in a hole in the rock
ringed it round with a
stone sphincter
lit it on fire
It got dark and cold
as I lay on the grass
staring at clouds
Man is the hierarchical animal, says
(purse-lipped) the ethnologist
The only animal, I say
lying on the grass
who can unbuild
hierarchies
once built
Scholars trapped in the web
of their paradigm
take it for reality
In the dark, in the firelight
I saw a hieroglyphic snake
(Pentti Saarikoski)