Odysseus

Odyseus: I am one of ten suitors too
in my own house, ten years have gone and the sea is black,
I am ten suitors and I've lost the sea, it's the sea of another man,
All the time I've the sky in my eyes, the sky is jealous, just as we are
The mowers in the sky are jealous, not only here at the earth, but also in the sky, that is empty: our thoughts are sky-walking.

There's the sea, the seafarer is near to the pervert star,
his brown bears copper, silver and hallmarked gold,
his journey is cursed, he will never arrive, it's his ship's last sail,
we envied his rambles the whole ten years,
the land waited for his bones' rest,

There's the sea., the sea is his, the sky
and Penelope, all these does not scale less than his mourning,
most of all we envied his mourning, the morning on his brown:
the guests invited, all of them welcome, my house is debauched: I am Odysseus.

* * *

The trees, all their green.
I wanted to offer you the lawn,
                at the flat of my hand,
     because it was spring.
I wasn't able to.

© Paavo Haavikko

Paavo Haaviko, born 1931 in Helsinki,is Finland's  most prestigious poet. His literary production includes poems, novels, short stories, radio plays, film scripts, and opera librettos.. His Selected Poems were published in 1974 in the Penguin Modern Poets series. Paavo Haavikko was awarded the American Neustadt literature prize in 1984 and the Nordic Prize of the Swedish Academy in 1993. For many years, he has been considered a suitable Nobel Prize candidate.

Initially Haavikko was considered a difficult poet, but later he developed a role as a national oracle writing economic pamphlets, television scripts, and company histories. That is the source of his pet name "Paavi" (Pope) Haavikko. He addresses himself to interpretations of Finland's recent past, concentrating on the problem of power. As a counterweight to bureaucratic power he sees that the small unit, even when pressed hard, must see the facts, be prepared for the worst, and survive, because it is needed to repair the damage done by great blocks. Haavikko is a wide-ranged "Renaissance personality," unusual in that he has a second career as a businessman. He has worked in real-estate, book and newspaper publishing, and now runs his own publishing house called Art House. His poetry has been published in a number of foreign languages. In German by Residenz Verlag, Salzburg/Wien.