JÓHAN MARTIN CHRISTIANSEN

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Fjøran er vát,
steinarnir eru hálir,
grønur tari veksur á teimum.
Eg taki upp í hondina av kúvingum
í tí reina sjónum.
Sparki ein fliðu leysa.
Millum tíðina og taran
í dimmalættingini
fer morgunin í gongd
sum ein koppað spann,
eitt opið portur,
ein gomul sjón har svørt skip
sigla oman á havsins skógum av æti.

Myrki morgunin er endaður sum
ein ljósur fyrrapartur.
Húsið er stilt,
alt bíðar og undrast.
Blómurnar eru burtur nú,
leykir og rabarbur hvíla seg.
Læri meg at liva her,
nú eg eri farin kring sólina fyri fýrafjørutiundu ferð.
Grasplenan er doyggjandi.
Eitt reytt ber á einari grein flytur seg í vindinum.

Aldurnar ljóða sum ein óendarlig brúsan.
Sandurin broytist hvønn morgun.
Tarin hevur gjørt nýggjar dungar av deyðum taraslokkum,
ið livdu sitt lív á botninum í nátt.
Fuglar sita á einum kvisti.
Smáir brúnir sniglar eru undir bløðunum.
Grønur mosi hevur sett seg á ein træbul.
Gulir soppar síggjast á børkinum á honum.
Deyðagrasið kemur heilt upp undir knæ.

At vita, at alt er ein onnur verð.
Altíð ein onnur verð.
Frost situr í bløðunum,
sum sandpappír á vegnum.
Eg tári av kuldanum tá eg komi inn.
Ískrystallir blinka frá túsund støðum í senn.
Sólin er við at fara niður,
meðan børn ganga heim.
Teirra spor í kavanum í tungum skóm eru elskaði.
Tungir dropar av vátakava hanga í greinum.

Seinast eg sá ein dreparasnigil, var í summar.
Eg royni at finna mína rødd her.
At ynska ikki at gerðast eldri,
er at ikki vilja missa sín barndóm aftur,
ella ikki missa nakað yvirhøvur,
at standa mitt í flóðini og aldunum í landslagnum
og halda um sandin og reyða og brúna taran,
at vilja fáa alt við,
ikki gloyma okkurt í niðurdettandi húsinum.
Sporini av raplandi minnum eru sum brimið,
at vita, at alt er ein onnur verð.
Altíð ein onnur verð.
Fingrarnir eru reyðir.
Nú liggja eggini hjá sniglum í plenini og bíða.

The shore is soaked;
the stones are slippery
with green algae.
I gather a handful of red whelks
from a fresh tidal pool.
I kick a limpet loose.
At first light, between seaweed
and the tides of time,
morning is set in motion:
a tipping bucket,
an opening gate,
a bygone vision of black ships
sailing upon the sea’s canopies of plankton.

The gloomy sunrise has ended
up a bright morning.
The house is quiet;
everything waits and wonders.
The flowers are all gone;
the bulbs and rhubarb are at rest.
Now that I’ve circled the sun
for the forty-fourth time, I’m learning to live here.
The lawn is dying.
A red berry on a branch dangles in the wind.

The steady roar of the waves—
the shore transformed each morning.
Kelp that swayed on the seafloor last night
is wracked up in heaps of tangled blades and dead stalks on the sand.
Birds sit on a branch.
Small brown slugs slip under drifting leaves.
Green moss colonizes a tree trunk;
yellow fungus works its way into the wounded bark.
The dead grass reaches all the way up to my knees.

To know that everything is an other world,
always an other world.
The grit of frosty leaves
sandpapers the street.
I come back in with my eyes watering from the cold.
Ice crystals sparkle from a thousand directions at once.
The sun is setting
on the children walking home;
the very tracks of their treaded soles are loved.
Heavy sleeves of wet snow hang from branches.

I haven’t seen a brown slug since last summer.
I’m trying to find my voice here.
Wishing not to grow older
is really about not wanting to lose my childhood again—
not wanting to lose anything else at all.
To stand amid the rising tide and undulating landscape
clinging to the sand, and the red and brown seaweed,
trying to take it all in and with me,
trying not to forget anything inside this crumbling house.
The wake of caving memories hits like heavy surf—
to know that everything is an other world,
always an other world.
Fingers, red and tingling.
The slug eggs scattered throughout the yard lie in wait.

Moldin er svørt.
Seinasta deyðagrasið er brúnt
tungt av hvítari vætu.
Grasið er hart og fryst.
Sólin sær, men hitar einki.
Vit bíða, vita ikki hvat skal henda.

Húsið er tómt um dagin.
Harðir vindar koma inn eftir víkini.
Brimið á sandinum skræðir taran við sær.
Tú ert ikki her.
Ein einsamøll ketta kemur inn í garðin.
Nú er skjótt myrkt aftur.
Dagurin endar skjótari enn hann byrjar.
Hvirlur senda sand og grasstrá upp í vindeygð.
Kettan er rýmd.

Tíðin teknar seg í rivunum og lægdunum
í gráa sandinum.
Ikki nógv vinarløg halda.
Alt er banalt sum hesin sandurin.
Familjur eru ikki sum tær vóru,
líkasum verðurlagið er vátari.
Tað siga tey sum vita tað.
Ein deyður fiskur er skolaður upp á land.
Sólin turkar hann.

Landslagið er tað sama.
Eg eri komin her aftur,
við kensluni av at liva forskotið,
tjúgu ár for seint, ella tjúgu ár ov tíðliga,
við kensluni av at detta
og smílast til tey sum ganga framvið.
At dagdroyma um kuldan
ein desemburmorgun
og vita at eg havi mist alt her,
at einki er sum eg minnist tað,
at heimurin her er sum ein óklár fotomynd
løgd oman á eina aðra sløraða mynd
har øll andlit eru brotin
og forskotin av tíðini.

Ribsrunnar og sólberjarunnar
omaná standa staraflokkar.
Í telefonini grætur tú aftur.
Eitt land er ein konstruktión,
sum má endurskapast hvønn dag,
staturin og tjóðin,
men ikki landslagið.
Vit ynsktu at hvørva í eygunum á hvørjum øðrum.

Gangi gjøgnum trølsligu gjónna,
millum alt sum var,
tað sum kanska er,
tað sum skal koma, ella kanska ikki skal koma.
Tað er ein megi í fólkunum sum vilja búgva her,
ein sorg eisini.
Havi sløkt iPhonina,
stararnir eru flognir,
ribsrunnar og sólberjarunnar eru stillir.

The soil is black.
The withered grass is brown,
matted and stiff
with wintery glaze.
The sun lowers its cold gaze.
We wait without knowing what’s going to happen.

The house is empty during the day.
Furious squalls blow in off the bay.
Breakers rip seaweed up and sling it about the sand.
You aren’t here.
A solitary cat slinks into the fenced yard.
It will be dark again soon.
Each day ends more quickly than it begins.
Gusts send sand and blades of grass swirling against the window.
The cat has vanished.

Time etches itself in ripples and grooves
on the grey sand.
Few friendships last.
Everything is as banal as this sand.
It’s raining more and more here,
and families aren’t what they used to be.
That’s what the experts say.
The dead fish that washed ashore
is shriveling up in the sun.

The landscape is the same.
Once again, I’ve returned
with the feeling that I’m living in a time warp –
like I’ve arrived twenty years too late or too early –
as though I’m slowly falling
all the while smiling to the passersby.
To daydream about the cold
on a December morning
and know that I’ve lost everything here—
that nothing is as I remember it,
that here the world is a blurry photograph
superimposed on another bleary image
until all faces are shattered
and distorted by time.

A starling flock lights
above red and black currant bushes.
You’re crying on the phone again.
A land is a construct
that has to be recreated each day;
this goes for the state and the nation—
but not the landscape.
We wished we could disappear in each other’s eyes.

I move through the trollish gorge
between all that was,
all that might now be,
and all that may or may not come to pass.
There’s a strength in the people who choose to live here
but also great sorrow.
I’ve turned off my iPhone.
The starlings have flown;
the berry bushes are still.