print previewback TALVIKKI ANSEL
Somewhere in Space
[Edith Södergran . . . ]
Edith Södergran, also holding the leash
of a Karelian Bear Dog (“a hunter
of unyielding bravery and determination”)
wrote
“somewhere in space hangs my heart” and
“sparks fly from it, shaking the air.”
Yesterday I thought: I want a birch tree,
there, and saw three slim trunks in a clump, my only
deliberate thought: three white lines
vertical and the cats weaving in and around them
and the girl on the rock under the birches.
If a cat nests under your shed
is it your work to nudge and cajole
the offspring into domesticity,if a wren nests in your yard, surely you will give it
a wide berth until the nestlings fledge. Planetary
your movements around them—
their incendiary hearts.
Edith Södergran, Love & Solitude: Selected Poems, 1916–1923,
trans. Stina Katchadourian (Seattle: Fjord Press, 1985).