Torgeir Rebolledo Pedersen (*1949)

Stille samles skyene
Calmly clouds gather
from Geitehjerte (2006)

Calmly clouds gather
Calmly they’re tended

Calmly they graze themselves grey
Calmly they plummet

A myriad drops plummet
Calmly the rain’s gathered in

Calmly the rivers flow
Calmly Chuna flows into Angara

Calmly Angara into Jenisei
Calmly Luvua into Lualaba

Calmly flows the Mississippi licks
its shores’ wounds

Calmly she flows into the landscape
Embracing it with loving meanders

Calmly the rivers come
to the crop’s rescue

Calmly the corn comes
Calmly the rivers whisper

Stinking of live
Smelling of death

Calmly is gathered
All we believe in

All we believe with
Calmly it rises

Calmly clouds gather
Calmly they’re tended

Calmly they graze themselves grey


Jakten på jaet
The hunt for the yes (fragment)
from Geitehjerte (2006)

Love is
an eternal
audition to slip
close to each other
right to the bone
to play
the main role in each other
with gestures as big
as giraffes

Then the wind veers
blows a city away

I run after her
Cry out beloved
Have no fear
of the breakers

Cry out
Have no fear
of what is most fearful
for I, I am the windcalmer
shall quieten the winds
and burnish the sea

Shine
only on me
Miss Sunshiner
Then I will shoot
towards you with the
most hopeful, most light-green
letters Miss Leafing
Miss Killer
Miss Midwife
my heart’s delight
my pain’s carved plight

you drunken rhododendron full
of you you festspiel

Cheers for the great
likeness that
between you and me

That we are both
of this mortal stuff on
which life feeds
This mortal yes


Seidmanns sang
Sorcerer’s song
from Erfaring og forsvinning (2010)

look!
a cloud answers
the call of nature
the call of the cuckoo and the siskin and the cricket
the call of the love-sick toad and
of the pipit

listen!
a cloud answers the call of rain
and plays hundred-handed on a fern

as summer answers
the call of autumn
as the sky pulls down rain
and drums with it
drum drum drum on the roofs

listen!
the drumming on the trees
the dripping on the fungi
drip drip drip on the fungi
on the world’s inside-outs

here my soul’s right-side-out
among inside-outs

that issue circulars
Volves in fairy rings
soothsayers with wizards’ hats
Russulas
in a circular defence
gallant companies
falling in battle against the frost

just look!
when winter answers
the call of spring
I will stand in the rain
stand and fall with it
fall at the first shot

listen!
a double-barrelled spruce-shoot

look!
I shall be riddled with spruce-shoots


Verden for fire vinder
World of the four winds (fragment)
from Ferdsskriver (2002)

Well blown, but with what plumes, what plumes
each and every grew something more

(Well blown, but with what logo full-rigged)
On what keel the globe sailed around like
ode or like pogrom

Well blown, but with what seeds, what seeds
the trees grew full-rigged with birds

Spring out and spring in, all singing
all bringing their territorial refrain

Likewise all creatures, each with its own voice
will one day be at their last gasp

(Well blown, the territories returned)
But who takes over every
breath that breathes its last


Poems from Samlede dikt (Collected Poems), Geitehjerte (A Goat’s Heart), Erfaring og forsvinning (Experience and Disappearance), published by www.oktober.no
Translations: John Irons