UNDER THE WORLD

In his dusty olive grove, overlooking his son’s grave in
                    The shadowy depths below, stood an early fisherman,
   
Drying the dead-weighted nets of an aimlessly drifting night.
                    From deep in the valley hoarse roosters crowed the light higher

And higher, while nearer to the path leading down to the sea
                    Cicadas slit the net of silence surrounding the house,

Passed down from father to son, where his wife lay fast asleep and
                    Dreamed of her husband, the time-blind fisherman, who picked up

A hammer (the same one, he knew, his son had once used to fix
                    The derelict dovecote) and continued building his boat.

She spurred him on from the depths of her rudderless desires,
                    Tugging and jerking at the sunken anchor of her sleep.

With death at his back the feverish fisherman worked himself
                    Into a sweat, oh pounding heart, and banished all thought of

Two white legs imprisoned in a pair of black fishnet stockings.
                    Nail after nail was driven into stem, stern, time and tears,

Until they mingled and were washed into the sea of his son
                    In the depths below, a rising sea, in which his island

Sailed like a green barnacle-clad ship, with hundreds of shrieking
                    Seagulls in its wake, through storm-tossed centuries and broken

Mountains, in water stretching from heaven to earth in the clouds.
                    And as she watched his face she could see the earth’s womb open

Up with a convulsive shudder, which happened every time his
                    Eyes sailed deep into her soul and he rammed her delicate

Hull, just as he was doing now; and he turned to her, lay down
                    His hammer, whispered a soft farewell to the dovecote and

Went back to his work, staring at the teeth of his glinting saw,
                    And since its sharp edge produced a smile in him, she also

Saw his teeth and then in the steely blue of his eyes the sea,
                    So that all her longing was laid bare in its reflection.

And the shadow of the sculpted olive trees ran through her dream
                    Like green oil slithering voluptuously down the curves

Of the trunks, only to run out again on the other side
                    With the long-legged leap of a sea cat or sea serpent.

Then the powerful strokes of the singing saw slipped inside her
                    Panting breath, climbing up on the ochre coast of her flesh,

While the steamy sweat of the fisherman streamed into his boat,
                    Into the sea and down her face, turning it to silver.

Obedient to the hammer blows filling the blood-stained boat,
                    To the oar-hard muscles struggling against a heaving chest:

The heart. Surrendered to the inexorable will of time,
                    Which will awaken in either the fullness of mercy

Or the confining emptiness of vengeance, clutching onto
                    That which knows no mercy: the body. Just then – as the cruel

Nails, curved like horns, frantically clawed their way to drier heights,
                    To the refuge of the mountain goat, the mythical ark

In the eternal snow, up towards the piercing stab of the sun
                    And the hell-lit heavens – magma erupted from the earth.

The sea trembled, swelling the waves, and the yellow bowsprits, booms,
                    Gaffs and masts thrashed against each other, growing entangled

In the black network of cables and halyards, ropes and stays, lines
                    Swinging back and forth in the lurid light of an orange sky.

A school of silver saber-shaped fish fled from the curving spine
                    Of the inky blue sea, their headless bodies hurriedly

Darting, two by two, through the water in a shiver of fright.
                    And while soot and ashes drifted down from twilight-tinged clouds,

The arching sea savagely leapt at the foot of the mountains
                    And rolling hills, where the dead lay quaking in their coffins.

The frothing mouths of the waves recoiled for just one moment from
                    The cross with the color photograph of a skinny boy

In a light-red sport shirt lifting a barbell over his head
                    In the shadowy depths below, before the hills listed

And sank. Then, from the sinking tops of the olive trees there came
                    The white skeletal frame of a fishing boat, with an oar

Shaped like a hammer, a billowing pair of blue overalls,
                    Without their fisherman, and a woman of salt staring

Dazedly in the dense light to where an island used to be.
                    High in the sky – the head of a dead polar bear – the moon.

UNDER DE WRÂLD

UNDER DE WRÂLD

Yn syn stoffich hôf fan oliven mei it sicht op it grêf
                    Fan syn soan yn ’e bedelte, stie in iere fisker

Him de netten fan in deadsk ferdobbere nacht te druien.
                    Ut ’e djipte fan ’e delling kraaiden heaze hoannen

Ljocht omheech en deun oan it paad del nei de see teknipten
                    Sikaden it net fan ’e stilte om it hûs fan heit

Op soan, dêr’t de yntroude frou yn sliepte noch en dreamde
                    Fan har man, de tiidbline fisker, dy’t in hammer (de

Hammer, wist er, dêr’t syn soan it ynsakke dowehok mei
                    Makke, ea) beetpakte om troch te bouwen oan syn boat.

Oan fjurre se him mei út ’en djipsten lossleine driften,
                    Hoartend en stjittend oan it sonken anker fan ’e sliep.

En mei de dea yn ’e rêch jage de gleone fisker him
                    It swit út ’e hûd en, o op hout en dream klopjend hert,

De swarte netten dy’t blanke skonken fongen út in tins.
                    Neil nei neil sloech er troch gongen, ynhout, tiid en triennen,

Troch triennen dy’t de tiid ferspielden ta de see fan syn soan
                    Yn ’e bedelte, in riizjende see, dêr’t syn eilân,

Fan kriezjende seefûgels hjitfolge, as in grien útslein
                    Skip de weagjende ieuwen troch yn omfear mei brutsen

Bergen, yn wetter dat yn wolken himel yn ierde seach.
                    Sy seach hieltyd wer de huveringen fan ’e skerte

Fan ’e ierde yn syn gesicht bywannear’t syn eagen fier
                    Yn har útfearen en har de romp fan de ranke siel

Lekstompten, lykas no; en hy draaide him nei har ta, lei
                    De hammer del, sei sêft farwol tsjin it dowehok en

Wurke troch, beseach de tosken fan syn seage (dy’t blonk) en
                    Om’t se de skerpte fan ’e seage talaken seach sy

Syn tosken en yn it blauwe stiel fan syn eagen de see –
                    Yn syn spegelbyld ûntbleate de sinne har ferlet.

En it skaad fan byldhoude olivebeammen rûn troch har
                    Dream as griene oalje nei de leidich krûnkeljende

Stammen werom om oan de oare kant wer út te rinnen
                    Yn in langliddich ljeppen fan seekatten, of njirren.

Fûle halen fan in sjongende seage krongen yn har
                    Meigeand sykheljen, de okeren kust fan har fleis. En

Willich fiskersswit streamde by de boat wei, streamde mar troch,
                    Del nei de see, nei har gesicht dat him fersulvere.

Underwurpen oan de hammerslaggen fan in boat fol bloed,
                    Dy’t mei roeispieren tsjin ’e stream fan ’e kiel yn bealge:

It hert. Oerjûn oan de wil fan ’e tiid dy’t earst yn himsels
                    Yn folle genede ûntweitsje soe, as ek ûnwil

Fan in taknipende romte, dy’t yn himsels datjinge
                    Beethold dat gjin genede koe: de lea. En de narre

Neilen krûm as hoarnen, op libben en dea wrakseljend nei
                    Toarre hichten, ûntwyk fan ’e stienbok, de mytyske

Arke yn ivige snie, de sinne syn flymjende priem,
                    Helferljochte himel, briek it magma út ’e ierde.

De see huvere en bûle, giele boechsprieten, giken,
                    Gaffels, mêsten swypken byinoar op, betizen har

Yn in swart kabelnetwurk fan stagen, skoaten en fallen,
                    Linen, slingerjend tsjin in loft fan gruzich oranje.

Ut de hege inketblauwe rêch fan ’e see ûntflechte,
                    Sulver, sabelfoarmich, twa oan twa, in skoalle fisken

Sûnder kop dy’t fertrille yn in skodzjen dat net ophold.
                    Wylst it roet reinde út de himel syn skimerwolken,

Besprongen de batske rêgen fan ’e see de fuotten fan
                    Bergen, heuvels, dêr’t de deaden yn har kisten trillen.

Eefkes skrillen de skombekken fan ’e weagen tebek foar
                    It krús mei de foto fan in meagere jonge mei

In fealread sporthimd en in brede halter boppe de macht,
                    Yn ’e bedelte, dêr’t de heuvel kantele en sonk.

Ta de weisinkende krunen fan olivebeammen út
                    Kaam al silend it wyt bonkerak fan in fiskersboat

Mei in roer as in hammer en in folblaasde overall,
                    Sûnder fisker, en in frou fan sâlt dy’t ferwyldere

Omseach nei eat dêr’t it eilân west hie, foar it kerlich ljocht.
                    Dêrboppe – de kop fan in deade iisbear – de moanne.