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Beethoven’s 250th birthday poem!

  • Posted by Mary Ann Caws (she/her) on December 16, 2020 at 10:20 am

    Mary Ann Caws
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    10:14 AM (2 minutes ago)

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    [News from The Poetry Foundation]

    (poetryfoundation.us12.list-2Dmanage.com)
    BY TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER

    [Share on Twitter](poetryfoundation.us12.list-2Dmanage.com)

    It’s spring in 1827, Beethoven
    hoists his death-mask and sails off.

    The grindstones are turning in Europe’s windmills.
    The wild geese are flying northwards.

    Here is the north, here is Stockholm
    swimming palaces and hovels.

    The logs in the royal fireplace
    collapse from Attention to At Ease.

    Peace prevails, vaccine and potatoes,
    but the city wells breathe heavily.

    Privy barrels in sedan chairs like paschas
    are carried by night over the North Bridge.

    The cobblestones make them stagger
    mamselles loafers gentlemen.

    Implacably still, the sign-board
    with the smoking blackamoor.

    So many islands, so much rowing
    with invisible oars against the current!

    The channels open up, April May
    and sweet honey dribbling June.

    The heat reaches islands far out.
    The village doors are open, except one.

    The snake-clock’s pointer licks the silence.
    The rock slopes glow with geology’s patience.

    It happened like this, or almost.
    It is an obscure family tale

    about Erik, done down by a curse
    disabled by a bullet through the soul.

    He went to town, met an enemy
    and sailed home sick and grey.

    Keeps to his bed all that summer.
    The tools on the wall are in mourning.

    He lies awake, hears the woolly flutter
    of night moths, his moonlight comrades.

    His strength ebbs out, he pushes in vain
    against the iron-bound tomorrow.

    And the God of the depths cries out of the depths
    ‘Deliver me! Deliver yourself!’

    All the surface action turns inwards.
    He’s taken apart, put together.

    The wind rises and the wild rose bushes
    catch on the fleeing light.

    The future opens, he looks into
    the self-rotating kaleidoscope

    sees indistinct fluttering faces
    family faces not yet born.

    By mistake his gaze strikes me
    as I walk around here in Washington

    among grandiose houses where only
    every second column bears weight.

    White buildings in crematorium style
    where the dream of the poor turns to ash.

    The gentle downward slope gets steeper
    and imperceptibly becomes an abyss.

    A Note from the Editor

    Today marks the 250th birthday of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827).?

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