Klaus Rifbjerg

Klaus Rifbjerg Poems

Klaus Rifbjerg Biography

Klaus Rifbjerg was born in Copenhagen but grew up on the island of Amager in Øresund, on the east coast of Sjælland, the child of two teachers. Later he studied English and literature, in Copenhagen and for a year in the United States. His breakthrough was in 1958 with the novel “Den kroniske Uskyld”. Since then he has published more than 100 novels as well as short story and novella collections, plays, TV and audio plays, film scripts, children's books, and diaries.)

The Best Poem Of Klaus Rifbjerg

The hovering tree

Most trees
grow in the ground
but my tree
grows at third floor height
and recently my neighbour said
that it ought to be cut down.

Perhaps it grows in the ground
further down
but for me it
mostly grows out there
in front of the window
at third floor height.

Too long far too long
it stood there bare
and I thought that
perhaps it would never
come into leaf but one day
it was green.

Green leaves and bursting buds
a kind of shimmering
erective giddiness
hovering
outside my window.
The airborne tree!

My lungs opened out
a sprouting sap-taut branching system
aerial mycelium and oxygen
unfolded everywhere
I was breathing!

The neighbour felt
the tree took too much light.
When he looked at it
he didn't see
that it gleamed!

The axe has been laid at the foot
of the tree
on the asphalt
the few places trees grow
in their humble holes
in the city.

Hovering out there my
breath
and at third floor height
my green soul
immortal and ready for battle
defying all natural laws
in the holy name of nature and
growth.

Let there be light!

Translated by Joh Irons

Klaus Rifbjerg Comments