I share a poem, today by the Norwegian master, Rolf Jacobsen. Jabconsen is said to be a pioneer of modernism (Many go so far as to call him the “first” Modernist Norwegian writer). He was born in 1907 and lived his adult life north of Oslo. He worked as a journalist and newspaper editor. His writing explores urban living, the industrial complex, and the balance between nature and technology. Though, in his early years he was tarred with the same brush as the Futurists - his first collection of poetry explored the urban world, racing cars, airplanes, and electrical turbines - his view was far from being romantic. His evolution of thought, mirrored in the thematic movements and philosophical shifts of his poetry, is that of a poet caught in the vortex of modern living, who explores with greater nuance the balance between nature and technology.
I like this idea of evolution. I am interested in the poet’s body of work acting as a barometer for human interaction with the world, and the complexities of the interaction between technological inventions and the material and natural universe.
I share with you today, his poem, When They Sleep. Written in his trademark contemplative style, it emerges from a persona that thinks deeply about his surroundings and the actions and desires of people around him. The poem’s gradual descent into the well of the self, and the last few lines on the state of sleep, had a great effect on me. This effect was not different from a moment of philosophical insight, chanced upon unknowingly while perceiving something filled with startling simplicity, like a leaf falling in the wind:
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
-- God, teach me the language of sleep.
I pair this poem with an image shared recently by a filmmaker which has fascinated me since I set my eyes on it: Resting on a shadow tree - Jerry Downs.
