Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

The White-Tailed Eagle Opens Her Wide Wing Span

to an Endless Wind            

across the sand, white

  and cold as old seamen

    walking widelegged down the stone fences

      with tobacco yellow longfinger nails around the rake  handles

        and the mild weather

over the moors, red

  as autumns of love around the villages of gravel

    sudden arisals from smouldering beds

      and subdued women’s voices

over the fjord, glacier blue

  and tar burnt like sleep

quickly the shadow lurks like a worm

  across the warm flat stones in the pile

 

(HAVØRNA FEMNER SITT BREIE SPENN OM EIN UENDELEG VIND from fluktlinjer 2000 translated into english by Veronika Bonaa)