The Last Believer In Words

Say More, Speak Like Rain
Arne Ruste

published in Poetry East
translated from the Norwegian by Olav Grinde

Am I perhaps 

the only believer now?

I believe in words

I believe in the carrying capacity 

of words in the power of their

relativity

I believe in

the parable, the paradox, the poem

and in the stories

of old men

told over fences, and I 

believe in the soft

things of this world, in wood and

clay, that they will outlive 

steel and concrete

human things are what I 

believe in, the penetrating

power of gentleness

and I believe in things

that take a long time to make,

like trees and books

but I no longer believe 

in the good deeds

of this world

I no longer believe
in 
heroism, I believe 
in
good-naturedness

and in words spoken by simple people,

simple words woven together

like baskets for carrying

I put my stock 

in stamp collectors 
and the owners

of small shops
and 
country inns, carpenters 

and flower-women

There are no big

words in this world, only

loudmouths and demagogues

The collapse of words is a conceited fiction

Words hold everything together 

Words connect everything.

I believe 
in café talk and

in coffee-break talk

I believe in prayers, narrow

strips of words, weightless and golden

burnable, spread to the winds

I believe in 

confessions whispered in darkness

and in letters

I believe in ballads and in

curses of a sincere heart

I want
words

like deep axe cuts and clinging

mallets. I want 

words

like shiny stones in my pocket,

words like thrown arrows

I want words

like the years in a worn down 

table. Maybe I am the last 

believer now:

I believe in blind man's 

never faltering fumbling over a writing

of flaming points

We Carry Eggshells
by Hanny Michaels
Translated from Dutch by Marjlion de Jager

We carry eggshells filled
to the brim with tears
carefully through time

In the mirrors of our eyes
the world rises inhospitably.
We have been everywhere
we return nowhere.

Laden with memories
we stoop towards the earth.
Ignorant and unwise
we wither away from the light
without a trace.