Thursday 11 February 2016

'Smerte' - a poem from 1943 by the Danish writer Morten Nielsen

Aching

Soft candles flicker in the rain, but such our hands are spurning,
and we no longer will accept those chestnut candles’ burning,
for we have tried to one more time, and know the final turning.

When our two minds a second time each other would have known,
there was then nothing else than worthless words to call our own.
You’re walking by my side and yet you’re walking there alone.

For there is nothing left at all that we’re allowed to give.
Soft candles flicker in the rain, but have not long to live.
And our eyes gleam in that same void as empty as a sieve.

For you are there, and I am here, and that is all things’ aching:
And mutely earth finds by the rain its green deep heart is waking,
but we can find no way inside, and that is all things’ aching.


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