On the grass in the Vasa park in Norrköping, while eating strawberries, I read a book of poems by Rut Hillarp. It was – –
Well, there just are things that cannot be described in prose. Things that need the brief nature of poetry. Where the few few words actually can carry the impossible weight of being human. That, which is so hard to understand and even harder to describe.
Some poets just can. And Rut Hillarp turned out to be one of them.
Two extracts, in my inadequate translation:
Song
Dream me a forest where all the spruces get lost
dance me a cloud a dragonfly a meadow
drown me a well from the wingbeats of your pulses
and embrace me an ocean
kill me a bridge between the mountains above your hand
forget me a ring of silver around your forehead
Dazzle me a world without eyes
* * *
You are the path where every step judges me and destroys me.
And one day when you leave me, it is yourself that you abandon, not me.
Katja Malmborg 