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from “Everything Shimmers”

By Naja Marie Aidt

Translated from Danish by Susanna Nied

Danish poet Naja Aidt blends nature and myth in this freewheeling ode to a child.

December 1, 2015

Published in After Inger Christensen: New Danish Poetry

Denmark Natural World Children

Blue morning glories on a yellow background

Morning Glories by Suzuki Kiitsu. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Seymour Fund, 1954.

Listen in original language

Original Language

Then suddenly beech woods, all green behind the dozing eyes
a deer leaps across the forest road
scents of acid and moss and cheek against bark, sunrain
between trunks, I’m home and hear the Baltic Sea
crash against big rocks far away and I rest like a
fairy or a witch in the sweet smells of the forest floor
we can so easily forget what we are who we are
that we are, but it takes only a little call
to waken the sleepers, as now, in the forest, for
LISTEN, isn’t that song and the chiming of goblets
sounding in the green chambers? YES by golly, a celebration
for the child in his seventeenth year, who never has
been happier and never will be happier; the world shimmers
everything unimaginably possible while a handspring
and a new but not disturbing sensitivity have settled
in the middle of his irresistibly marzipanescent
body.

From Alting Blinker. © Naja Marie Aidt. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2015 by Susanna Nied. All rights reserved.

Then suddenly beech woods, all green behind the dozing eyes
a deer leaps across the forest road
scents of acid and moss and cheek against bark, sunrain
between trunks, I’m home and hear the Baltic Sea
crash against big rocks far away and I rest like a
fairy or a witch in the sweet smells of the forest floor
we can so easily forget what we are who we are
that we are, but it takes only a little call
to waken the sleepers, as now, in the forest, for
LISTEN, isn’t that song and the chiming of goblets
sounding in the green chambers? YES by golly, a celebration
for the child in his seventeenth year, who never has
been happier and never will be happier; the world shimmers
everything unimaginably possible while a handspring
and a new but not disturbing sensitivity have settled
in the middle of his irresistibly marzipanescent
body.

From Alting Blinker. © Naja Marie Aidt. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2015 by Susanna Nied. All rights reserved.

Alting blinker

Så pludselig bøgeskov, helt grønt bag de blundende øjne

en hind springer over den stampede jordvej

her lugter af syre og mos og kinden mod bark, solregn

mellem stammer, jeg er hjemme og hører Østersøen

slå mod store sten langt borte er jeg hvilende som en

fe eller en heks i skovbundens dufte

vi kan så let glemme at vi er dem vi er

at vi er, men der skal bare et lille signal til

at vække den slumrende, som nu, i skoven, for

HØR NU er det ikke sang og bægerklang

der lyder i de grønne sale? JO, et gilde sørme

for barnet i sit syttende år, der aldrig har

haft det bedre og aldrig får det bedre; verden blinker

alting ufatteligt muligt mens et kraftspring

og en ny men ikke forstyrrende følsomhed har slået sig ned

midt i den uimodståeligt marcipanemmende

krop.

Naja Aidt

Naja Marie Aidt is the author of eight volumes of poetry, three volumes of short stories, and a novel, all critically acclaimed.

Susanna Nied

Susanna Nied is an American writer and translator.…

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