(untitled)

The mornings are light, the evenings dusky,

water’s metamorphoses alter:

clouds, rain, fog, a little snow …

...

 Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

But still there are sounds and light.

What should I do, the shadows lengthen, it will soon be autumn,

...  

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

In the bushes there are no paths,

boats do not slide through the shore gaps,

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

The lanes become red, the forests yellow,

the mountains darken in the distant rain,

in the yard smoulders the smoke of autumn leaves.

 ...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

My forest-smelling room

gets red still earlier

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

All day we have heard a swish in the sky,

the migration has started.

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

After thirty days

the house is empty,

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

 DEEP AND CLEAR

Sky so clear that everything melts in the light.

Day so hot, as if it had just been created.

 ...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

REFLECTIONS

1.

The boat slips into the water,

the rushes open, close,

...  

2.

A horse goes to the landing-stage, bends to the water,

from within the water rises another against it.

......

3.

The days rise, fall

        like leaves,

             weightless like the shadow of leaves,

... 

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

And again it is morning,

from the shore rises a warming

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

A CUP OF TEA

A shadow went over.  Bird or cloud

or image of my obscure desire?

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

CARO MIO DRUCK UND SCHLUCK

We talked of Mozart

and the rondo’s cheerful falls

ran down the cliffs,

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

MINNELIED, LIEBESLIED

All afternoon I read old streaked-with-silver prose,

fine old lays; Vogelweide

wrote with a quill lightly,

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

Something had gone, the bird knew,

jug jug, reiterated the bird, gone gone.

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

(untitled)

Was it your hand scattered stardust on my writings?

A cloud has wrapped up the rain and carried it off,

the dawn has drawn into the northwest a silver line.

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

ALPHA

But in truth I have already been dead

a long time,

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

from EXPERIENCES OF THE EMPIRICAL ME

1.

If sorrow smouldered

the smoke would cover the earth.

...

2.

My heart burns, the porch and the chamber burn,

...

3.

Twins:

love and death, both

equally unreal, equally desired,

...

4.

Joy and sorrow always alternate.

Friend, mixer of senses, do not touch,

...

5.

Steps whisper on the stairs,

steps come, steps go.

...

6.

Words come and words go,

I need fewer and fewer words.

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

ON WATER’S SUPERIOR FORCE COMPARED TO THE EARTH’S

Many of my works have been born of disgust, but these have been born of love: the biographies of odours and voices. 

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)  

from ORPHIC SONGS

When the shore and its reflection are exactly the same

and complete and calm the marriage of sky and water,

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)

TOWN

Much have the houses grown in this town,

the ravines become deeper, the waters blacker,

...

Eeve-Liisa Manner (translated by Alan Marshfield)     back

(For full translation see the Kindle ebook The Translations of Alan Marshfield)