Tidewater Poem by Gunnar Harding

Where the alphabet ends, the universe begins
with formlessness that casts the mind back
to the reader in which the sturdy cart-horse from the Ardennes
still trudges along on its big shoes.
All the words begin with capital letters
as if they were names of people we once knew
or places where we once were
and never returned to.
Next to each letter stands an animal.
Learn the letter, and the animal is yours.
You can build a cage for it out of a matchbox
with bars of sewing thread.
But the rat bites the boy who doesn't want to go to school.
The cart-horse kicks him.
The magpie steals his silver spoon, it is gone forever
but the coffee cups keep reappearing
with their glazed immortelles, slightly precious
gold-rimmed images of life as we'd like to think of it.
A cloud of steam rises out of every cup.
Above the water, more gigantic clouds rise
and become subjects for conversation, or perhaps even
conversations themselves, an exchange of thoughts still so formless
that they must be confronted with those of others
before they can acquire more precise outlines.
Everything comes in as flotsam, jetsam
carried by waves that have beaten against your shores for so long
they have become replicas of your thoughts:
pieces of broken coffee cups, magpie feathers, bits of conversation,
but all the silver that's left is these reflections on the water.
Only three letters remain, Y, E, and S.
They form the magical word.
Pronounce it, and the white suit is yours.
You win free admission to the shores of forgetfulness
where you can open up to the most elemental:
to look out across the sea, to think without words.

Translated by: Anselm Hollo