Two Poems

Two Poems by Tua Forsström

Tua Forsström was born in 1947 in Porvoo, Finland, and lives in Tenala. She made her literary debut in 1972 with the collection En dikt om kärlek och annat (A poem about love and other things). She has worked as a publisher's editor at the Finland-Swedish firm of Söderströms in Helsinki, but for most of her life has been a full-time writer. Forsström has won more literary awards than any other Finnish poet of her generation, and is as well-known in Sweden as in her homeland. Her collections of poetry have been translated into Finnish, Danish, Dutch, French, Spanish and English.

The two poems here are from Parkerna [The Parks] (1996). [my tr.]



The snow whirls over
Tenala churchyard

We light candles so that
the dead will be less

lonely, we believe they are
subject to the same laws

as ourselves. The lights twinkle restlessly:
perhaps the dead are longing for

company, we know nothing of
their doings, the snow whirls

The dead are silent as cotton.
A flock of thin children who

inaudibly take one step closer
They look at us closely for a

moment: is it because they’ve
forgotten, or remember? The snow

whirls over Tenala churchyard

As when you in
over a city at night at

low altitude: the lights become
motorways, the headlamps of

the traffic, you arrive
from somewhere

Soon you are driving along a
road, one of the twinkling

lights in the whirling snow






We make such a pitiful
sight that the circus-master
is in tears. What is more, we’re cold. Ach!
He wishes us to hell, he wishes
this muddy market-place in Ekenäs to
hell, with eyes closed he leaves
this slush-puddle for the continent, a
different place: where the ballerina’s lace isn’t
dirty, where the trapeze artist doesn’t
smell of spirits, where the lion doesn’t stare
despondently. Where cracks don’t open
in the powder. Where cracks don’t open
anywhere! The circus-master doesn’t know
any such city, but it is painful to
grow old and remember without pain. Somewhere
the horses’ coats are shining, spangles,
glitter, the audience roars far away
from these bumpkins. There it is never
October with snow-mingled rain, there art
is memory and shimmering coins.