Yes still this sense that those rare
soulbirds who really hear and know
touch as well as flight
must be sheltered from night’s harshness
All souls suffer a body Sadness limits
them no less than the soulless who
always distinguish cause from ef-
fect They preach fundamentals
the four compass points while from the birdsouls
feather after feather falls in flight
until finally the air cannot carry them
(the Juhan Liiv poetry award 1999)
The soul sometimes gasps in the breast
It does not want to fly to the air in these
explosive times It grips the ribs like bars
But then it comes murmuring Houses tremble
in fear Because everything happens inside
not outside
*
I am concrete like a comb’s tooth that kills
lice I am merciful and I take everything
together to a stove where fire glows
One needs to reserve firewood like death
In the stable I assure a horse it will not be taken
to a fox ranch I feed it hay from my hand
It must be winter I infer it from rosy feet as
I run glowing through snow to the house
Where is eternity Where love While it is necessary
to kill lice and horses every last one
*
Our old good grandmother has died
singing voices have fallen silent
We turned what could be turned
reversed what could be reversed
Now grandmother has died
If you have a memory write it down
If you have a memory of a memory
write it too
We want to preserve grandmother’s experience
through the later generations
Grandmother’s handrail favorite bench
Brittle and colorful autumn leaves
So familiar from life and poetry but
even dearer now because grandmother
is gone The ash-heap of her existence
glows Even makes snow melt when
autumn is over In spring it rises
as grass a flower the sun
the sweet ache of swelling
when the earth moves bones and you
sing with a mocking mouth: grandmother
has died into life
*
A frog jumped through the scythe
and screamed It was as if
it were the voice of the scythe itself
touching the living
*
Someday there will no longer be a living soul and people
are of glass They describe circles that enclose
you as well You ask but no one answers Does not know
or feel Your language I would let kill me if you could
see I am still alive
*
Translated by Jüri Talvet and H.L. Hix
ROUNDS
I
Like someone who is a stranger to herself I have thought all day
what the meaning of life might be
that would make it amenable to everyone not too gloomy
too hopeless for the reader
optimistic suggestions bright solutions
I think but cannot decide
already it is midnight beyond the window the last bus passes
red lights flashing
I have not gotten past the beginning
II
The heavens console themselves with us
or is it fate or character
that has determined the way
A thousand chances to step aside and
I choose one a chance to betray
a chance to love or simply to let days pass
I choose one
I am ready and now I meet myself
III
From year to year perhaps understanding better what keeps you locked
in yourself
that can really be simple and one
but carefully covered transparent only when keenly observed
palpable at its core when misfortune uncoils
life turns itself around and
starts to flow backward here is the beginning
that the end holds in its hands like a result
(From Selle talve laused, 1978)
Stone eye tires like a real one
and nets swell memory grows
like a stubborn shoot that roots
in a crack in stone What a desire
to be a forest and inhale
those strong winds that have
passed over dead and living
matter unhindered
The end of the world is here not beyond many seas
(beyond much blood yes the door is open — closed)
and the world falls when you reach
bluffs from which no road rises
no slope begins
you do not know what is broken from what is whole
If you are somewhere Who and for Whom
Not even a question or an echo
Free yourself from bonds
like a leaf that falls
like a number that cannot be divided
like a rhyme without rhythm
the chrysalis of your existence
releases flight
Memory crumbling scatters
dust full of light and
chiming
How tender was this tenderness at the merry-
making drinking-table
How callous was this callousness in
aching cold somewhere in a garden
where a tower has been built
mourning bells toll
How passionate was passion there out-
side the high wall of snow
how ethereal were words like arrow-
shaped birds that reached heaven
Everything is valid only in one’s birth-
place and a little beyond
Yes of Estonia I would still
testify but how could I speak
of her if I am of the same
matter the same tongue in my mouth
the only one this tiny people
has had for centuries Probably
I have not existed and there was no land
distinct from the people
So I won’t be reciting
the popular anthem I am
only a particle in this blood union
I no longer recognize those I know
and any stranger seems long
familiar so often I am prepared
to greet her but my anxious
glance turns her away
I remain wondering at her
There she goes and unknown
to me is a life
I wanted to touch
(From Tuhased tiivad, 1982)
The camel goes through the eye of the needle and survives
in history books spring returns geography maps savannahs
distant countries with strange animals
panther in a northern land and polar bear in the south
don’t live at all live in the present day
From beyond nonexistence imagination looks at me, not the one who was, I my-
self look, do not forget there is no one but myself.
If I look from outside, see myself as other, then why the other
could not be me there beyond what the walls have grown over.
When I leap into the air, I may one day pierce the air, the tree of yearning
grows tall.
(From Igiliikuja, 1985)
The door is opened Light leaks in
bright white an increasingly intense streak
Who is there you ask sleepily
It is silent Inside it is your fear one
unfortunate morning
Things are mostly friendly
chair offers a seat table
invites eating Between light
and shadow are only those
frightening with the night you still fear
with your teeth in day’s coil
She complains to her friend that someone spites her
someone gossips at night In the day
shadows slip away Faces
cannot be captured
Often she rings another town
The underworld listens Remembers
words and wonders why the voice
travelling the line laughed
but did not cry
A dark bird has been released
and covers the town with its wings Black
wing feathers fall into
the sleep They disturb
(From Tulek on su saatus, 1987)
A frog jumped through the scythe
and screamed It was as if
it were the voice of the scythe itself
touching the living
Our old good grandmother has died
singing voices have fallen silent
We turned what could be turned
reversed what could be reversed
Now grandmother has died
If you have a memory write it down
If you have a memory of a memory
write it too
We want to preserve grandmother’s experience
through the later generations
Grandmother’s handrail favorite bench
Brittle and colorful autumn leaves
So familiar from life and poetry but
even dearer now because grandmother
is gone The ash-heap of her existence
glows Even makes snow melt when
autumn is over In spring it rises
as grass a flower the sun
the sweet ache of swelling
when the earth moves bones and you
sing with a mocking mouth: grandmother
has died into life
(From Elujoonis, 1989)
Our fathers have awakened They beckon
with bony hands on the mountain famous from the Bible story
Our mothers are young and precious in rooms
that smell of Christmas trees With dirty hands we scratch
glass doubles of Judah and Christ
from the hiding-place of times long past
I am concrete like a comb’s tooth that kills
lice I am merciful and I take everything
together to a stove where fire glows
One needs to reserve firewood like death
In the stable I assure a horse it will not be taken
to a fox ranch I feed it hay from my hand
It must be winter I infer it from rosy feet as
I run glowing through snow to the house
Where is eternity Where love While it is necessary
to kill lice and horses every last one
Little brother’s hands are sad Oh sad hands
of my brother On the table fingers crossed He
smiles Life so far has gone well My own hands
hang by my side No strength to lift fingers
to stroke Outside the willow weeps Sadness in the very name
We divide names from lives
Then mother enters though home is not here
She simply knows how to enter feeling our guilt
Fathers stand in doorways Suddenly straight as a wall
Someday there will no longer be a living soul and people
are of glass They describe circles that enclose
you as well You ask but no one answers Does not know
or feel Your language I would let kill me if you could
see I am still alive
The soul sometimes gasps in the breast
It does not want to fly to the air in these
explosive times It grips the ribs like bars
But then it comes murmuring Houses tremble
in fear Because everything happens inside
not outside
To a provincial town’s slow life I rushed
impulsively tearing shrouds of the crucified
Speaking of vanity that from a distance seemed holy
Quite flayed I remained naked
Be silent when you touch the heart
Borderlands are fiction
(From Hüüdja hääl, 1993)
The last word The last The last The only
possible I will be pushed to the stove on a cabbage
leaf like a scone The eyes of the coals
glow Soon the protective crust will taste good
I will be broken and not feel pain
I will be eaten and it is bread
I dream of marigolds and the spring from which
I drank in childhood
(From Pidevis neelab üht nuga, 1997)
I, KAFKA AND DELEUZE-GUATTARI
1.
Look how the machine of living works
what desires fill it The Trinity
moulders among old junk God blows his
nose on the silver wholeheavens
If there was once love now the body is
so pierced by possibilities that shamelessly I
lie into piety
The dream is always real and we crave
the same eyes without asking about color
Verse has rhythm and meter and repetitions
have their own circular motivations
Let me be a machine God
trains the animal in me and the schizoid freedom
2.
I am one but the perspective is
everywhere and always so different that
I disappear into intersecting shafts of light
and am the same everywhere if whoever
in whatever place cares to notice me
How much nonexistence surrounds all
of us and even that weighed by reason
What else could absence be if not
death and what else is memory
if not renamed life
(From the monthly Vikerkaar, 12/1998)
Translated by Jüri Talvet
