Danish author, musician, painter, and sculptor Rolf Gjedsted (1947-2022) wrote fifty-five works of poetry, fiction, translation, and non-fiction. Although a colleague of the great Danish writers of his time, such as Michael Strunge and Inger Christensen, Gjedsted never achieved much notoriety as a writer during his life. Still his poetry reveals his facility with musicality and the transformative power of language. A trainer of Icelandic horses, a guitar player, as well as a black belt and instructor in karate, Gjedsted was fearless in penetrating the substance of the written word. He owned and lived part-time in a stone cabin in Spain where Federico García Lorca lived before he was killed, and Gjedsted wrote many of his poems there.
Michael Favala Goldman is a translator of Danish literature, a poet, educator, and jazz clarinetist. Over 130 of Michael’s translations and poems have appeared in periodicals such as The Harvard Review, Rattle, The Los Angeles Review, and The New Yorker. He has translated 18 books of Danish poetry and prose, including Dependency, book three of The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen, which was selected among New York Times’ Best Books of the Century. His nine books of poetry have won many accolades. He lives in Northampton, MA, where he has been leading poetry workshops since 2018 and serves as vice-president of the board of the Northampton Center for the Arts.
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The combination of sun and my kisses
The combination of sun and my kisses
mars your skin and creates sores
that won’t heal here in the mountains,
where the air is so clean and sharp
that the cut flowers,
chamomile, blue- and white rosemary,
are mummified in mere seconds,
to exude their aromas for years
below the beams of almond wood.
Here the house is history and aroma.
The poet García Lorca lived here in the thirties.
Here is where he planned attacks
with the mountain farmers against
the fascist forces in their headquarters,
the castle Helios, which still disgraces the landscape.
It is a pure dream about a classic sun,
systemized by torture chambers smelling of soap,
made of marble with inviolable stone floor patterns,
from which democracy would be assailed.
While Lorca wrote for freedom and love
to the gypsy girl, Maria del Sol,
whom he had just made love with under the full moon,
the fate of Spain was decided
in bloody and magical moments.
And now the story continues,
while we still sit in the sun.
The afternoon and certain shadows
have adjusted our perceptions,
here where the air is so clean and sharp,
and the oxidation so permeating,
that the cut flowers
and the whole story
are mummified in mere seconds.
Kombinationen af solen og mine kys
Kombinationen af solen og mine kys
river din hud op og danner sår,
der ikke vil heles her i bjergene,
hvor luften er så ren og skarp,
at de afhugne blomster,
kamille, blå- og hvid rosmarin,
mumificeres i løbet af øjeblikke,
for at afgi deres dufte i årevis
under mandeltræsbjælken.
Her er huset historie og dufte.
Digteren, Garcia Lorca boede her i trediverne.
Herfra planlagde han med bjergbønderne
anslag mod de fascistiske styrker
i deres hovedkvarter, slottet Helios,
der stadig skæmmer landskabet.
Det er en ren drøm om en klassisk sol,
sat i system af sæbeduftende torturkamre
af marmor med ubrydelige flisemønstre,
hvorfra demokratiet skulle bekæmpes.
Mens Lorca skrev for friheden og kærligheden
til sigøjnerpigen, Maria del Sol,
han netop havde elsket under fuldmånen,
afgjordes Spaniens skæbne
i blodige og magiske øjeblikke.
Og nu lever historien videre,
mens vi stadig sidder i solen.
Eftermiddagen og visse skygger
har flyttet vore forestillinger,
her hvor luften er så ren og skarp,
og iltningen så gennemgribende,
at de afhugne blomster
og hele historien
mumificeres i løbet af øjeblikke.
Festival of the Saint and scarce rain
A restlessness comes over you
on certain scorching days in the mountains,
when all movements rebound,
and all initiation of action
is incapacitated on the spot, out of apathy.
You can remain neither
in the sun nor in the shade.
Everywhere the hot breath
of the mountain paralyzes you.
Activity is at its rock bottom,
yet wherever you turn your gaze
life is still going.
You feel your senses still functioning,
and you can still mobilize your vision.
Some gypsy women are washing clothes in the river,
even though there is hardly any water.
They hang the black garments to dry
on some dead fig trees.
A few donkeys and goats
are meandering in the arid riverbed,
eating half-withered leaves from eucalyptus
and plane trees.
A dog is trying to tear some meat
out of a dead, dried up monitor lizard.
A shriveled farmer
rides by slowly
atop his mule,
which is loaded with dry, yellow bamboo.
From a village in the mountains
suddenly bursts a series of fireworks
in the now blue-black sky.
It is a festival of a saint,
and the rain will come
with the banishment of evil.
Helgenfest og sjælden regn
En rastløshed kommer over en
på særligt hede dage i bjergene,
hvor alle bevægelser slår tilbage,
og alle afsæt til handling,
lammes på stedet i apati.
Man kan hverken være
i solen eller i skyggen.
Alle steder lammer
den hede ånde fra bjergene en.
Aktiviteten er på nulpunktet,
men hvor man end vender blikket,
er livet stadig i gang.
Man mærker, at sanserne fungerer,
og man kan stadig mobilisere sit syn.
Nogle sigøjnerkvinder vasker i floden,
selv om der næsten ikke er noget vand.
De hænger det sorte tøj til tørre
på nogle udgåede figentræer.
Nogle æsler og geder
går rundt i det tørre flodleje,
og æder halvvisne blade fra eukalyptus
og platantræer.
En hund forsøger at flå noget kød
at en død, indtørret varan.
En vissen bonde
rider langsomt forbi
på toppen af sit muldyr,
der er læsset med tør, gul bambus.
Fra en landsby i bjergene
brager pludselig en række raketter
på den nu sortblå himmel.
Det er helgenfest,
regnen kommer
med fordrivelsen af det onde.
Revenge
It is their evil nature
which makes the flies
bite us
when we’re out in the sun,
and the fine, red dust
simultaneously swirls up
from the cars on the unfinished road
and captivates our senses.
The Spanish fly
does not know the anxiety
which overpowers us
when we have been chased long enough,
by flies and dust, for example,
or by the traffic noise of the world.
The mountains answer everything
real and unreal
with an echo
and massive silence.
It is our own presence
which brings out the flies!
First a few curious flies.
Then their close and distant
acquaintances.
Until everything around us is humming
with flies and dust,
chasing us around
each other in the sun.
But the flies’ life is short
as is the period of stirred-up dust.
They both vanish with the sun
or fall to the ground
at a lucky strike
or dead air.
These unlucky flies
have to accept
being carried away,
still living and half-crushed
by ants and beetles…
We watch them attentively
through the dust
with an evil joy
they never will know.
See how these half-dead, crushed
little creatures vainly, like ourselves,
struggle for their lives;
and leave nothing behind,
except a little trail in the sand.
Hævn
Det er en ondskabsfuld natur,
der får fluerne til
at bide os,
når vi er i solen,
og det fine, røde støv
samtidigt hvirvles op
af bilerne på den ufærdige vej,
og besætter vore sanser.
Den spanske flue
kender ikke angsten,
der bemægtiger en,
når man er blevet jaget længe nok,
af for eksempel fluer og støv,
eller bilstøjen fra verden.
Bjergene svarer alt,
virkeligt og uvirkeligt,
med et ekko
og en massiv stilhed.
Der er vor egen tilstedeværelse,
der frem kalder fluer!
Først få, nysgerrige fluer.
Så nære og fjerne bekendte
til disse fluer.
Til alt summer omkring os
af fluer og støv,
der jager os rundt
om os selv i solen.
Men fluens liv er kort,
som det oprørte støvs tid.
De forsvinder begge med solen,
eller falder til jorden
ved et heldigt slag,
eller vindstille.
Disse uheldige fluer
må finde sig i,
at blive ført bort,
endnu levende og halvkvæstede
at myrer og biller…
Vi betragter dem opmærksomt
gennem støvet
med en ondskabsfuld glæde,
de aldrig selv lærer at kende.
Ser hvordan disse halvdøde, kvæstede,
små væsener forgæves, som os selv,
kæmper for deres liv;
og ikke efterlader sig andet,
end et lille spor i sandet.
