Anything that's of value...
Anything that's of value, it holds it
to someone here, my thoughts
wander. And picturing the precious
Values, tilted in a liquid mist
And they move, like clothed
statues in that grey light ,
again, again draped, folded, twirled
in our eyes. Now what
is it that would come alive
on their own two feet?
Right there inside, awakened spirits here, or just
for us, one and every
one of us? I don't wish, don’t trust
to give them a striking force
blinding and twisting -
buried in them, whether
you'll like it or not. So to whom
am I a precious being? We look
into each other, and deep
in there I see your light
This one's an adaptation (looser fit than a translation) from a poem by Göran Sonnevi (born in 1939, one of the foremost poets writing in Swedish today). I've been reading his work for a long time, and the original, untitled but beginning "Allt som har ett värde" (All that is of value) moved me deeply when I found it in a 1999 collection titled "Book of Chords". It's my own attempt to move this over into English and share it, and the line structure has been reshaped a little, some parts of the imagery have been sacrificed too. Well, I hope I caught some of its quiet force.
The adaptation is dedicated to Tessa.
