Excerpts from
Bees Die Sleeping
By Morten Søndergaard
We are in that
whatever-may-be mood
our hands are a river
and the cool night is already leaving us
ropes of
evergreen are trailed across the ground
and behind us we hear
the children’s excited voices.
Here we are foreigners,
at the fore.
These dark
figures do also bear names,
animals, constantly
turning their heads from side to side.
We know our
place in the twilight, all laid out,
shining instruments on a
green cloth,
the whiff of camphor and
cartoons of childhood,
we built dens on the
motorway central reserve,
and we slept with our
eyes open.
Big white
years just slipped right through us.
We grew out of our
clothes and covered in moss and earth
we now crawl up out of
the graves and start to dance.
At the
crucial moment: great stillness
As if the action knows
more than the words
As if we do
not need such pathos,
such extent.
When the rain came, worn
out we became one with the drops.
Maybe we
shall settle here, after all?
Translated by Barbara Haveland
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