Dags för Les Murray

Stor poet från vischan flyttar ut i världen med sin lyrik

Dags för utnämnande av Nobelpris i litteratur. På Kistalight skådar vi i kristallkulan och tror och hoppas på australiensaren och poeten Les Murray.
Vi citerar en annan Nobelpristagare Joseph Brodsky, här med den engelsk amerikanska stavningen av namnet, och hans litterära tanke från essän Tidvattnets brus i Att behaga en skugga "att allt det spännande inom ett världsspråk sker i utkanten" av språkområdet. Där finns sprickorna och öppningarna. Väsentliga författare och tidigare Nobelpristagare som Derek Walcott från Karibien, Seamus Heaney från Irland, V. S. Naipul Från Trinidad och varför inte J.M. Coetzee från Sydafrika är exempel på detta. Nedan en gåtfull dikt av Les Murray i dag i engelsk språkdräkt. Den svenska versionen kommer senare.

- Läs och njut!

- Dikten är kanske större än ett Nobelpris?

An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow
The word goes round Repins,

the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,

at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,

the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands

and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:

There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.

The traffic in George Street is banked up for half a mile

and drained of motion. The crowds are edgy with talk

and more crowds come hurrying. Many run in the back streets

which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:

There's a fellow weeping down there. No one can stop him.

The man we surround, the man no one approaches

simply weeps, and does not cover it, weeps

not like a child, not like the wind, like a man

and does not declaim it, nor beat his breast, nor even

sob very loudly—yet the dignity of his weeping

holds us back from his space, the hollow he makes about him

in the midday light, in his pentagram of sorrow,

and uniforms back in the crowd who tried to seize himstare out at him,

and feel, with amazement, their minds

longing for tears as children for a rainbow.

Some will say, in the years to come, a halo

or force stood around him. There is no such thing.

Some will say they were shocked and would have stopped him

but they will not have been there. The fiercest manhood,

the toughest reserve, the slickest wit amongst us

trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected

judgements of peace. Some in the concourse scream

who thought themselves happy. Only the smallest children

and such as look out of Paradise come near him

and sit at his feet, with dogs and dusty pigeons.

Ridiculous, says a man near me, and stops

his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit—

and I see a woman, shining, stretch her hand

and shake as she receives the gift of weeping;

as many as follow her also receive it

and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more

refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,

but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing,

the man who weeps ignores us, and cries out

of his writhen face and ordinary body

not words, but grief, not messages, but sorrow,

hard as the earth, sheer, present as the sea—

and when he stops, he simply walks between us

mopping his face with the dignity of one

man who has wept, and now has finished weeping.

Evading believers, he hurries off down Pitt Street.

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© Thommy Sjöberg