Photo by Baard Henriksen
Unfinished Self-Portrait
I take my leave of mother, she gives me
a key, but there is
no key, only her hand stretching out
and the goodbye, a barely audible
aftershock: a pinecone landing
in a puddle—
and still no autumn.
Music Again
The supple growth
in the windowsill, the future’s
autumnal sprouts,
and the day turns as mother turns
away from herself.
But what is completely silent?
Nothing, nothing is ever hushed.
Listen: the apples give off little snaps
in the morning sun, a squirrel
shakes off pollen,
and a marker dries out
under a cot.
Meditation on a Train at Night
I trust what lives around us shares random insights with us. Always this presence, rustling. But what is unfathomable in the world? The room she left behind. Only that.
RUNE CHRISTIANSEN (b. 1963) is a Norwegian author. He has written eleven critically acclaimed novels and several volumes of poetry since he made his literary debut in 1986 with Where the Train Leaves the Sea. In 1996, he was awarded the Halldis Moren Vesaas Prize. In its grounds the jury said that Christiansen’s body of work holds a unique position because it exposes a new phase in modernity in Norway with its “tough but sensual masculine urbanity, not alienated from, but integrated with the elements, the shiftings in nature, transience and permanence.” Christiansen has stated that “literature borrows its authority from wanting.” He characterizes his books as “transient rooms where oblivion and recognition illuminate and amplify each other as equal and simultaneous events.” His other prizes and honors include: Prix Transfuge du meilleur roman étranger (2023); Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2019); Gyldendal Prize (2015); Brage Prize (2014). The poems here originally appeared in Jeg går i sorg (I Walk in Mourning), published in Norway by Forlaget Oktober in 2022.
About the Translator:
JASON GORDY WALKER (b. 1991) is a poet, translator, and prose writer who lives in Alabama. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming at Asymptote, Louisiana Literature, Nimrod International Journal, and others.
Read more by Rune Christiansen
Author’s Website
Interview at Book*hug Press
Poems in Poetry International
Poems in Words Without Borders