Aase Berg

(translated by Johannes Göransson)

I Walked Out in the North

I walked out in the North toward the shout, followed the red track through midnight, where dangerous ruby blossoms opened their lulling lairs. I walked out in the North toward the aches toward the well stone toward the spring, where we have never again returned. Maybe Adrian hunted. I had seen him like that: white in the face, naked, on his knees crawling. He carried a hare child in his jaws, was smeared with its blood; mourning deeply entranced. I walked out in the North toward the shout, toward borders where stones chafed against stones. The deer water glowed darkly, painfully, and darkly burned the sap the dread. I walked out in the North toward the chasm, where maybe Adrian hunted. And the linen it fell so white on the all-too-dark earth, in the glade where night steam rose all around me. Then the marsh butterfly moved so close to the blood lips, so close to the poisonous fibers of the smile. I walked out in the North toward the torment, followed the heavy fragrance through midnight. And there even I, at last, dark with sap, allowed myself to be touched.

Logging Time

Hard trunks chafe. The ghost herb stands cold and rustles. The slow soil waits steadily. Fog rolls across the sour meadows.

Now is the time for logging. Hard trunks chafe; bark tears bark. The wax girl rinses sore. In the distance, thunder crashes down against big blank metal sheets.

The slow soil waits steadily. The wax girl scrubs sores. Foxes and crows come closer with fixed blood gazes. They gather. They multiply. They grow harmfully numerous.

One can hear whimpers and hunting games in the hunger moss. The wax girl rubs her sensor prong against the tight skin of the large scar. Moles loosen, the fox tree glows red. Now it is time for the logging to slowly start to heal.

In Dovre Slate Mill

Maneuvers the body over deep traps, over water-filled holes and open wells, over the animal’s wet fur with horror in its neckfrenzy. Sharp branches hit and whip bloodneedles against my fingerskin my face of blue enamel against naked nettle fibers. On the other side of the smeltery at the edge of the dour lake there I see Zachris coming too close to the shaft. I move closer to the head even though chains clang dull metal against the febrile radula. Here runs a clear underground border a fistulation toward Mare Imbrium. I thrust the musclelatch toward the machines that throb there in the wound. What evil can happen to you what evil can happen to you here near heavy waters. In the smithy the Daude choir’s tortured tracks shrieking against the sharp bar. Chitinstaffs, porphyry, cold coal crystals. And my stiff hands cupped, and my stiff hands cupped around the surface of your black cranium.