Kristiina Ehin's The Drums of Silence (trans. Ilmar Lehtpere)

Translated from Estonian, The Drums of Silence won The Poetry Society's Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation in 2007. The book can be purchased from Amazon.co.uk. Thanks to George Ttoouli for introducing me to Ehin's work.

you learn a foreign language

and chirp the dark sap of your feelings out

but the tall trees of my childhood

have rolled up their swings

and are fleeing for the sea

"Come what will"

the stars crackle

like fires on marsh islands

"your heart falls into my lap"

the moon is making a heavy rope

from the hair of a corpse

and is coming

down

tonight

"the moon howls"

a good man

puts a woman out to grow like woundwort

*

long so long are the years

but

life is fleeting

"woman of gold"

what are we to believe then

here in this land of tree worshippers

where the pulpits still flow with spilt blood

blood

the tree gods were without

last stanza of "the afternoon sun..."

the time is at hand

when you dance your ungainly dance

rub your hips against your shadow

*

the time is at hand

when the iron door of your heart is open

earthen tiles will not burn

the handrail will not waver

you can see what mineral you're made of

what plain water

what rarefied air

"the time is at hand"

fidelity--rough as a man's cheek

raw meet that draws you close

a trail that remains

a trail that can't be abandoned

last stanza of "I smell you at the crossroads..."

our mouths close

innocence and death

tremble in my nostrils

innocence and death

vibrate in your fingers

*

two days later we were suddenly superfluous

our glances strayed along the muddy town

soaked through

we sat in the snack bar

and didn't see through each other's city faces

"on the way to Siberia"

magnanimous night

the gentle fever of sweet scent

in your hair

opening of "magnanimous night"

woods barren of berries and mercies

"it is a time you can see"

...thoughts those free elusive

swallows

fly hither and thither

looking for food from feelings

"to walk and to walk my own road"

the steep shores of sincerity

"down below the city growls"

I paid and went

in dream's muddy buses

no notion of waking

no fear of inspection

the last stanza of "in a dream"

the day lingers

and it's gone

suddenly even the maps are frozen solid

the last stanza of "fog appears imperceptibly"

icicles drip and

the hall door is open

so we can cry

our laughter out

spring came

over our feathered shoulders

and our hearts were kindled aflame like

cleansing spring fires

"man and bird"

dreams are like deer

shy and self-contained

I am a hunter on the foggy shore of dreams

a hunter who never takes aim

but never takes

her eyes off

first stanza of "dreams are like deer"