You have forgotten that spring
once mated
in your blood,
that your hands
were wild with sap,
that the milk of enthusiasm
boiled in your veins,
that the peach of your heart
was drunk,
that happiness floated
like a stag through your body,
that the entrails of trees
were tough as ropes,
that gardens galloped over horizons,
that fish were blue
and kicked in the sky,
that smells had not yet
sunk into the bogs.
You have forgotten that your thoughts
once walked upright.
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Original Norwegian
by Halvor Roll
translated by Judith Jesch
from Twenty Norwegian Poets (bilingual edition)
