I'm on a small Kopland jag here with many, many thoughts, but not much time. So in the meantime, a short poem of his. We'll talk horses and different translations later.
Young Lettuce
I can take it all,
the withering of beans,
flowers dying, with dry
eyes I can see the potatoes being
dug up, when it comes
to those, I'm really tough.
But young lettuce in September,
just planted, still limp,
in little moist beds, no.
(Rutger Kopland, An Empty Place to Stay, Twin Peaks Press, 1977, translated by Ria Lei-Loohuizen.)
2 comments:
the onions
are now placed curing
on screens and the
long task
of picking up cleaning
soaking cracking
walnuts has begun.
the squash curl at the end
of their dry vines.
it is less of the sun we
have. I can hear the future, the
street slush
crashing out from under
my car in
frozen January.
And the future from there, planting
onions in
the workable soil again.
oh, i love that. that makes my day. in that "oof, punch in the stomach" kind of way.
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