One Word
One word
—one stone
in a cold river.
One more stone—
I need many stones
to make it across.
~
I Have Three Poems
I have three poems,
he said.
Who counts poems?
Emily tossed hers
into a trunk, I
don’t believe she ever counted them.
She just spread open a tea-packet
That was the right thing to do. A good poem
should smell of tea.
Or of raw earth and freshly split firewood.
~
William Blake
What trumpet is this
resounding so clearly
through the morning sun?
What voice is this
calling
so strong
and bold?
tiger and angel
—in secret
your fire glows,
your wings
still folded,
your gait so light.
Long have I heard you,
bright and clear
on this Earth,
among hoarse horns
and braying bulls.
~
Read Lu Chi and Make a Poem
Read Lu Chi and make a poem.
He doesn’t say how it should be.
Many had painted an oak before.
Nevertheless Munch painted an oak.
~
That One Word
This is what I wanted
to say to her.
That one word.
But it has to be
just a hint,
a trace,
a riddle,
a dream
—it must come
like a wing
at night—
come as the wind
with eyes
of oceans and stars.
~
Issa Thought—
If I am good,
I can expect to live
many lives,
but this one
I shall use
for poetry.
~
[All from Luminous Spaces: Selected Poems & Journals]
~
From the Publisher’s Web site:
Olav H. Hauge (1908-1994) lived nearly all of his life in his native Ulvik in Western Norway. A largely self-educated man, he earned his living as a farmer, orchardist, and gardener on a small plot. His poetry is now seen as one of the main achievements of twentieth-century Norwegian literature.
Olav Grinde is a writer and translator whose works include Night Open: Selected Poems of Rolf Jacobsen. He lives with his wife Shelah, and they divide their time between Boston and Bergen, Norway. He runs small firm that offers professional copywriting and translation, as well as travel writing.
~
I have to add that I bought this book at White Pine’s table at AWP and ever since have been reading around in it, not at all systematically, and finding on every page a freshness and clarity like bright sunlight on new snow. And the selections from Hauge’s journals are equally fine. For example:
[On verse form]: “Should they offer you wine, accept some and taste it. The shape of the glass, whether rounded or six-sided, is less important. But a beautiful glass increases the pleasure.”
[The First Commandment in Art]: “Be true to your experience. That is the first commandment. don’t write anything that you haven’t experienced yourself. For poetry can liberate itself from experience, and live as though in a vacuum.”
[A Poem is a Universe]: “A poem is a universe: final, but still boundless, build up according to the same laws: harmony but also strife; tranquillity but also unease; at rest but also en route; reality but also dream; lie but also truth.
A poem should not be thick, dead substance: rather it must have light and the space between worlds—and the more tension is there, the more it inspires your thoughts to leap.
And so on. Over 400 pages of this richness!