Minerals

by Tua Forsström

(my tr.)


1

It’s green the way it’s green in May
It rains the way it rains in May when it’s green
In the clear dream we know that we dream
In the clear dream we are aware of dreaming
The horses run, it rains on the horses


2

One should keep one’s minerals in a box
Dust wears out their durability
The brilliance that surrounds everything deserted
One must keep them dark


3

I dreamed I was too dirty to go
to a doctor in Grand Popo, Benin, West Africa.
The doctor turned my ears inside out. It
hurt. There are things that can’t be buried
or dug up, one doesn’t know what they are and there
are many rooms in the underworld and glitter
from spaceships that have crashed.


4

But somebody lift her then
quickly so her waist doesn’t break
or the whole of her breaks
and just let her be


5

During the dark season
One must pass through many intermediary rooms
In a sprawling city with monuments
Greetings From A New Home


6

Digital silence is confusing. I know
an answering machine on which someone constantly holds their breath
and listens, forwarding one’s dejected messages
to a secret intelligence service and from there to the Worst
Department where they carry the documents on silver trays
silver-happy in wonderful blue garments made of fabric.


7

It wasn’t because it was useful
I’ll take the one with the stained paws
A cloud of rain blows through the heart:
I was homeless and you took me home


8

It wasn’t because of the things
It wasn’t because it was useful
It was because of the frogbit and the slimed-up
lake, I remember the frogbit!


9

The one with the stained paws
We were children in the light green hazel wood
There are flowing grounds where currents meet and
whirl green and waves blow in different directions



10

There was a little crowd of us who went to the market in Grand Popo
every Saturday at ten, bright patterns children and old folk goats dogs
hens and fairly domesticated pigs. In the middle Leena and I marched
fair-complexioned and really unnatural. Anyway we walked in the red dust
and the red mud in the hollows after cloudbursts God knows how long ago
forgotten and never have we laughed as we did along the village street in Grand
Popo when none of us had any idea what it was all about.


11

Through the foliage of the chandelier
the sky with stars of gold above the pulpit:
ÒAnd you will ask me:
From how far away did you see me
when we were alive that time?


12

Tunnel of smoke and cloud
Someone carried me in their arms I think
There were creatures there that did not leave me
It was dark. It went quickly


13

(old)

Apples thud silently to the ground
You will live in a single room
The radio destroys nearly all the characters
Mama I want to go home All the time
at home now