*****
Lassi Nummi: Six Poems translated by Donald Adamson
BETWEEN SEAS AND LAND
You came from the deep ocean.
The waves carried you into the world,
waves of song.
And the lightning flashed,
the bottom of the sea trembled,
nothing was the same as before.
Rest now for a time
on a cliff of skin
on the boundary between the sea and the land.
Try out your senses in every direction.
Soon you will hear, taste, feel:
this is a new country. It was created just
for you.
Soon
it will be dusk, and the first evening.
THE SLEEPING MAIDEN’S MONOLOGUE
I’ve decided.
I’ve decided
that life is good, that
life is worth living.
Are you still doubtful, grandfather? Don’t be.
When you look at my sleeping face
– and don’t even try to write ‘little sleeping face’
for it’s exactly the right size
for me here and now.
– so when you look at my face:
tiny in a way, defenceless, exposed to the blows of the world, but
behind it is this energy that you see
in my gaze, in my movements,
the force to go forward: I’ve decided to live, I’ve decided,
to reach, to aim, to advance,
to find the borders of the world and see
whether they hold firm or crumble.
Don’t have useless fears, old man.
I have already decided. I’m going to live.
YOUR MOMENT
Impatiently you knocked on the door of the world, weren’t
xxxxx satisfied
with the days that had been agreed.
xxxxx – It’s time! It’s time!
The years, the millennia are rushing by,
my time is now!
Now that you’ve had your way
you sleep calmly and gently,
xxxxx a little beauty,
so well-mannered and accommodating –
xxxxx – I hope I didn’t cause you
too much trouble?
THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, A FAMILY PHOTO, SPRING 2002
One looking one way, another looking another way
but no matter, it’s a family photo. A generation:
Big Sister in the middle (that young bluestocking who’s coming up to four)
then the Little Sister (so fresh and cheerful)
and between them there’s Boy-Cousin (an irrepressible joy-monster)
and then this new one, this
one-with-no-name-yet,
the Cousin’s Little Sister.
Let her be Little Plum.
Let her be Plum Blossom. Plum Blossom.
WHAT TO CALL US?
Not Grandpa or Grandma. These are particular members of our family.
And the same goes for Pappa and Nanna.
And not Granddad. Granddad lives in Tampere, as we know.
And so does Granny Maire.
And Mumi and Mufa are in Helsingfors, på svenska.
No, said Grandmother – I’ll be the grandmother!
and you’ll be the grandfather. Is that clear?
– Yes my dear, I said.
– In a way that’s clearer, said Grandmother.
– That way there’ll be no mixing up
with different sides of the family.
Either in the minds of the children or the adults.
– No mixing up I said. No indeed. But don’t you think
that they’re a little difficult to begin with?
And even later. Grand-father, grand-mother. A bit on the heavy side?
– I don’t think so, said Grandmother.
GRANDFATHER’S PRINCIPLES FOR BRINGING UP CHILDREN
You hold out your hand.
A helpless appeal
and an absolute command:
grandfather, on your lap!
Grandfather is a strict man,
in the normal way of things:
in this house children do not give orders, nor do men give way to emotions.
Grandfather’s profession alone disallows it:
if he lapses into sentimentality
the critics will tear him to pieces.
– And anyway, don’t you see grandfather is in a rush!
This is a writer’s study, his desk – you shouldn’t
crawl around here just as you please!
(your palms are moving along the floor, tap tap!)
and you mustn’t climb up against the desk!
And especially you shouldn’t look at me like that with those eyes of yours.
Your grandfather has principles for bringing up children. Think how fatal
it would be if these were not adhered to!
– – – like so. Now you are sitting there firmly
on the writer’s lap,
against his arm, just the way you wanted.
Now let’s go and inspect the rest of the house …
Lassi Nummi (1928–2012) was one of Finland’s most prominent writers in the second half of the 20th Century. In addition to his large poetic output, he was a cultural commentator and translator, working on the committee for Finnish Bible translation. His work covers the deepest aspects of life, including philosophy, art, and the place of the individual in the universe. However, his ‘Grandfather’s Poems’ are affectionate, poignant, and humorous, as demonstrated in the selection included here.
Donald Adamson writes in English and Scots, and translates Finnish poems into English and Scots He currently lives in Tampere, Finland. He has translated Finnish poems for How to address the fog: Finnish poems 1978–2002 (Carcanet/Scottish Poetry Library, 2005), and A Landscape Blossoms Within Me, translations of the Finnish poet Eeva Kilpi (Arc Publications). His collection All Coming Back was published by Roncadora Publications (2019) and a collection in Scots, Bield, was published by Tapsalteerie in 2021.
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Paula Sankelo: Six Poems translated by the poet
Please consider my application
for Meteorologist on Bear Island weather station:
I am ignorant of the weather.
I am terrified of bears.
I do speak your language
but I much prefer to be silent.
I will make unsettling coffee
and fraternise with the dogs.
This outpost is my last resort:
please don’t make me* go back South
where everywhere smells of trees!
*Reader, they did.
***
A wolverine opens the way for me.
I reach through the dust and the glass
one hand tight on the steering wheel
the other hand pressed on the child
and I think: after the child is born
I will tell him of this
I will say: your mother is here
she never left the forest.
***
The bears have returned
and they ask nothing from us.
Do we consider ourselves protected
now? And what of the new sagging hearts
they must trickle blood, but into whose sacred moss bed?
There are as many beasts
as there used to be hideouts in the thicket.
One by one we visit their sleep
where they stand guard over a different kind of dreaming.
***
An adder lies coiled
on top of a bronze-age cairn.
Calmly we tell the child:
how exquisite,
let’s not disturb her.
We lead the child by the hand
carefully past the pile of stones.
A horror sets in. The small body tightens
he asks to go back in the car.
He sits quietly in the car while the dogs race into the water.
At the final turn to our driveway, he
says: this isn’t my home
I might have been left in the forest.
***
Steadfast runs the Sky Deer
brings forth the joy of rain.
The newly Sacred cross our border:
feather-fairxxxfrost-beard
tooth-happyxxx glimmer-coat
saber-finxxx bronze-breast
countless pack and flock and swarm
of fang and hoof and wing
a shoulder blade twitches in the gloaming
antler meets antler with a husky clack.
Clearing the way for the newly Sacred
we banished the Sacred of old.
Onwards, old Sarva:
floundering, panting
you must make the rain fall anew.
***
I fail to explain
how I fissure under the glacier
wound up tight, and the child
runs in deeper, flaunting a skirt of tulle
through the cavern black and green
sprouting a silver tree on the wall
with filigree leaves large enough to take a life
in their fall
hit by the first beam of light
carried by the child, laughing,
running through the ice in the frost-embroidered skirt.
Paula Sankelo (MA, MSc, Mtech) is a Finnish citizen living in Longyearbyen, Svalbard. An environmental researcher by profession, she currently works as a museum receptionist and as a freelance writer and editor. She has recently published her first full-length poetry collection in Finnish (Katoava jää, Warelia 2024). The poems published here are her own translations of her original Finnish poems. More of her English translations are published in Polarlit: The Svalbard Literary Journal 1/2024 and Shearsman Magazine 2/2024.
The High Window 