Excerpts from
Force Majeure
By Niels Lyngsų
Constellation no. L
We go for a walk with the pram in the cemetery
and you say imagine if everything were in reverse
if rustling dry-brown leaves rose
one by one from the heaps on the forest floor
and fastened themselves to the naked twigs
grew damp yellow and green
gradually shrinking
each into its own bud
so the trees again stood unclothed emptying
water and minerals down into the earth and
sending out light that was gathered in the sky
and
if we were slowly constructed
down in the earth
pieced together by macro-
molecules and microbes
and then cautiously lifted
out through the crack in the earth's crust
fragile and filled with
confused thoughts and sorrow
and then carefully walked backwards
first with a stick but soon after without one
and suddenly acquired close friends relatives
loved ones all fetched up from the earth
in the same way as we were
and we went with them for a while
until they slowly became strangers to us
or struck out on other ways
and we became stronger and more assured
and then less assured and weaker again
softer without memory until
naked and helpless
we had a cord of nourishment fastened to our bellies
stopped drawing breath
and amidst great commotion were squeezed into
another person's body
where we shrank and became
simpler very very simple
until the sperm cell at last
drew itself backwards out of the ovum
Translated by David McDuff
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