mandag, mars 13, 2006

You Were The Wind


I am a boat
without wind.
You were the wind.
Was that the direction I wanted to go?
Who cares about directions
with a wind like that!

Du var vinden

Eg er ein båt
utan vind.
Du var vinden.
Var det den leidi eg skulde?
Kven spør etter leidi
når ein har slik vind!

Olav H. Hauge (1908-94)

This is one of my favourite Norwegian poets. Here's what Amazon has to say about him:

Hauge is one of Norway's outstanding poets. He has spent his life in Ulvik, a small town in the Hardanger area of Western Norway, and has made a living off the apple crop from his orchard, an acre in size. His poems, though deeply rooted in his western Norwegian landscape, are universal in their everyday subject matter, wry humour and an economy of language reminiscent of W C Williams or Robert Francis.

2 kommentarer:

kimananda sa...

That is a beautiful poem. Both times (though I had to cheat on the words that I couldn't instantly move into Danish).

HB sa...

Hauge writes a pretty archaic "nynorsk", so no wonder you couldn't instantly move every word into Danish. Even I think that some of his words and expressions are very difficult to understand. So sometimes it is better to read the English translation before I read the Norwegian original:-)