Now, my only translation.
This is a phony translation.
It was occasioned by the fact that all the poets
of the '60s, it seemed, were translating poems.
And I was a very bad linguist, which
is a pretentious way of saying that I, a bit scarcely, passed
first-year French.
But this is called "After the Anonymous Swedish"
because I figured that since I'm nearly all Swedish,
there's something, in Jungian terms,
in my racial memory that would cause me to be able to write
a Swedish poem, even though my two Swedish
words are "lutefisk" and "Stockholm,"
as I told the class.
[LAUGHTER]
But this is called "After the Anonymous Swedish," and then,
in parentheses, "17th century," which makes it more convincing.
It also covers my tracks in case anybody's looking for it.
But maybe you'll think, as I hope I still do,
that this sounds like a Swedish poem.
I was terribly serious when I wrote it.
[LAUGHTER]
"After the Anonymous Swedish."
"Deep in the forest, there is a pond, small,
shaded by a pine so tall its shadow crosses her surface.
The water is cold and dark and clear.
Let it preserve those who lie at the bottom,
invisible to us in perpetual dark.
It is our heaven, this bottomless water that
will keep us forever still.
Though hands might barely touch, they'll
never wander up an arm in caress or lift a drink.
We'll lie with the swords and bones of our fathers
on a bed of silt and pine needles.
In our night, we'll wait for those
who walk the green and turning Earth, our brothers, even
the birds and deer, who always float down to us
with alarmed and startled eyes."
Anyone who has seen Bergman's Magician
knows that that's a Swedish poem.