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Poetry

four creaking wheels

By Sindri Freysson
Translated from Icelandic by Martin Regal

Two middle-aged women, who do the paper-route, drag the cart beside them

along the ice-covered sidewalk, silent beneath the hoods of their anoraks. They remind me of passengers hauling their luggage, looking for the exit in a gigantic, deserted airport. Aside from the creaking of the cart, nothing can be heard except the droning of the air-conditioning system at St. Joseph’s Hospital, or perhaps they’re kindling the ovens at the crematorium. It’s been busy since the long-term wards increased in number. I live in an ash-gray house the look of which calls to mind a ship. On cold nights like this, it is as if the house is stuck in ice. One cannot see through the windows for frost. The sailing in this house is always slow. I sail away. Do the paper-route women wonder who these names on the door belong to, what faces are hidden behind the letter boxes? Seventy subscribers to hundred-page papers live here; seven thousand pages of small type and grainy photographs that two queens of the dawn haul around no-man’s-land before first light. These four frail wheels bear many words. And the responsibility is so great that they pretend not to notice anything as I trudge across their path, climb the bridge and order the dead deckhands to cast off. In the bowels of the ship stories are tossed around that no daily paper knows how to tell and no anorak-clad women have the strength to pull around the streets that steal their names from the darkest sea.     

“Fjögur veikburða hjól” © Sindri Freysson. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2011 by Martin Regal. All rights reserved.

English Icelandic (Original)

Two middle-aged women, who do the paper-route, drag the cart beside them

along the ice-covered sidewalk, silent beneath the hoods of their anoraks. They remind me of passengers hauling their luggage, looking for the exit in a gigantic, deserted airport. Aside from the creaking of the cart, nothing can be heard except the droning of the air-conditioning system at St. Joseph’s Hospital, or perhaps they’re kindling the ovens at the crematorium. It’s been busy since the long-term wards increased in number. I live in an ash-gray house the look of which calls to mind a ship. On cold nights like this, it is as if the house is stuck in ice. One cannot see through the windows for frost. The sailing in this house is always slow. I sail away. Do the paper-route women wonder who these names on the door belong to, what faces are hidden behind the letter boxes? Seventy subscribers to hundred-page papers live here; seven thousand pages of small type and grainy photographs that two queens of the dawn haul around no-man’s-land before first light. These four frail wheels bear many words. And the responsibility is so great that they pretend not to notice anything as I trudge across their path, climb the bridge and order the dead deckhands to cast off. In the bowels of the ship stories are tossed around that no daily paper knows how to tell and no anorak-clad women have the strength to pull around the streets that steal their names from the darkest sea.     

Fjögur veikburða hjól

Tvær miðaldra konur sem bera út morgunblöðin draga kerrur sínar samsíða eftir ísilagðri götunni, þögular undir úlpuhettunum. Þær minna mig á flugfarþegar með töskuvagna í eftirdragi, leitandi að útgönguleið í risastórri, yfirgefinni flugstöð. Fyrir utan marrið í kerruhjólunum heyrist ekkert nema skellirnir í lofttúðunni  á Landakotsspítala, eða kannski er verið að hita upp líkbrennsluofninn. Það hefur verið annríki síðan langlegudeildunum var fjölgað. Ég bý í öskugráu húsi sem kallar fram mynd af skipi. Á köldum nóttum sem þessum er það einsog fast í ís, því ekkert sést út fyrir hrími. Ég er alltaf á hægfara siglingu í þessu húsi. Ég sigli burt. Ætli blaðburðakonurnar velti því einhvern tímann fyrir sér hverjir beri þessi nöfn á dyrabjöllunum, hvaða andlit leynist bakvið bréfalúgurnar? Hérna eiga heima sjötíu áskrifendur að hundrað síðna blaði; sjö þúsund síður af smáu letri og kornóttum myndum sem tvær árrisular drottningar teyma um einskismannsland fyrir dögun. Það eru mörg orð á fjórum veikburða hjólum. Og ábyrgðin er svo mikil að þær þykjast ekki taka eftir neinu þegar ég þramma yfir ófarinn veg þeirra, klíf landganginn og gef dauðum hásetunum skipun um að leysa festar. Í iðrum skipsins velkjast sögur sem ekkert dagblað kann að segja og engar úlpukonur hafa afl til að draga um götur sem stela nöfnum sínum frá dekksta sjónum.

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