I come to think about your silence when the pines dawn,
when I walk a desolate path,
a path leading to another.
Ja, on the outskirts—the unseen, the explanation.
A grass grows by the path,
by the moss, by the grave.
With my eyes firm, high above the ground—
that I do not remember how I got away,
that I do not remember how I got there.
*
Along the road, you let go of the wheel.
Packing your tobacco, under the lip.
I reach for the wheel, as to take control.
The car slowly lonely on the forest road.
Ja, you rush, letting your eyes leave the road, cursing.
I have a belt. He is on his way up town.
The town is a periphery. Sett roads.
I have travelled there, beside the road since then.
In the empty when the empty reaches for me.
*
A cloudy morning sky.
The forest from within, the dawn from behind.
A horizon closing.
Something dull, something awaits.
There are so many things no words can say.
I wash carefully. As if undoing it,
as if it has to be there.
*
On the path, as I remember it.
A clear-fell, a bridge—
a road closed to the public.
What does it mean anyway.
I sing along against the sky above,
like the moss, like the roots,
like the pebbles on the path.
What difference does a little care.
*
What does transference,
what does mirror,
what does “so vast is your sea”.
It is in the nature of loss to be irrevocable.
There is something impossible about being in a moment, ja
imagining that someday it will be just a memory.
Everything looks uncomplicated from afar. All the things I
pen on intent.
You enter the forest. I enter the forest.
from Lines from the Finnish, the desolate Scania, ja from West Bothnia
Freke Räihä
translated from the Swedish by Freke Räihä
Listen to the original read by the poet:
“All the things I / pen on intent” is not really the same as “Allt det jag / själv fyller med meningar.” The word “meningar”, plural of “mening”, has the double meaning of “sentence” (in a text) and “meaning”; so: “All the things I / myself fill with meaning (and fill/write sentences with).” Things get lost; they always do, no poem is the same for any reader. And the word “ja” that is used in the poem comes from the Finnish word “and”, which also happens to mean “yes” in Swedish. These are the things one has to consider while translating. How to put it in English? What is lost? What is gained? As both the poet and the translator, I have to keep in mind that my English is not the same as my Swedish. I have read different things in the two languages and collected words and rhythms from different places. Translating my own words is harder than translating others’. I know what I mean, but not always what it means to the readers. To read one’s own words is almost impossible.
The long poem Skisser ur det finska, det ödsliga skånska, ja från Västerbotten (Smockadoll, 2020) was written using a language that came from grief and from other poems of grief; it is quite simply a weeping song. Or really a runosong (runolaulu), an old Karelian style of folksong sung in Kalevala metre. Except, though I set down to write a runolaulu, my own voice interfered in the writing of it and became louder than tradition suggests. But perhaps that is how tradition grows?
The long poem Skisser ur det finska, det ödsliga skånska, ja från Västerbotten (Smockadoll, 2020) was written using a language that came from grief and from other poems of grief; it is quite simply a weeping song. Or really a runosong (runolaulu), an old Karelian style of folksong sung in Kalevala metre. Except, though I set down to write a runolaulu, my own voice interfered in the writing of it and became louder than tradition suggests. But perhaps that is how tradition grows?
Freke Räihä (b. 1978 in Stockholm, with roots from Finland, Karelia and West Bothnia) lives in the rural outskirts of the south east of Sweden in the small town of Degeberga. Räihä receives a paycheck from Österlens folkhögskola, a radical community college, teaching creative writing, and spends his free time walking by the sea, writing poetry, and translating. For years Räihä has written literary criticism but now focuses on teaching to remain hopeful. Räihä has an M.F.A. in creative writing from Lund University and a B.A. in publishing studies (hence the need to find hope). Since 2001, Räihä’s poetry has appeared in journals both prestigious and obscure, and has been translated and anthologized numerous times. His twenty or so full-length books of poetry have been called “beautiful”, “maturing”, “confusing”, “angry” by critics; they continue to be in dialogue with other art and writing. Räihä is currently the holder of a five-year writing grant from the Swedish Writer’s Fund.
