{"id":240,"date":"2012-08-08T00:11:09","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T22:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/?page_id=240"},"modified":"2012-08-08T00:11:09","modified_gmt":"2012-08-07T22:11:09","slug":"africa","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/translations\/africa\/","title":{"rendered":"africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

From\u00a0afrika<\/span>\u00a0(africa) 1998<\/strong><\/p>\n

translated by Susan Schwartz Senstad and the writer<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m writing before darkness disappears<\/p>\n

for my african life<\/p>\n

each white day in snowy months<\/p>\n

each night in black reminiscence<\/p>\n

I’m writing so as not to disappear<\/p>\n

into the depths of snow, the icy white light<\/p>\n

I’m writing wings and flight<\/p>\n

a stork, a heron, ibis, snake falcon<\/p>\n

I’m writing wider and bluer<\/p>\n

than thought circling to the sea<\/p>\n

I’m writing in your glance my silhouette<\/p>\n

a strip of peachy light, a sunken sun<\/p>\n

I write the sound of twilight blue<\/p>\n

in the window I lean toward as to a thought<\/p>\n

I write the crystalline law of freezing<\/p>\n

I write the wound in the inner africa.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u00a0write a winter’s sorrow with great quantities of snow<\/p>\n

packed down in layers harder and harder<\/p>\n

around my dark twin<\/p>\n

black figures in ceremonial procession against the snow<\/p>\n

in slow nearly still strides<\/p>\n

carrying simple wooden caskets filled with skulls<\/p>\n

over the white patches of consciousness<\/p>\n

where no jungles, riverbeds or peaks are mapped<\/p>\n

where so many tribes have been annihilated<\/p>\n

and sorrow is a white requiem that will never cease.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u00a0write a statue, black<\/p>\n

in silhouette against the blue ridge<\/p>\n

where light patches drift like cattle<\/p>\n

across my retina<\/p>\n

I am an old notion<\/p>\n

under my black skin<\/p>\n

no woman<\/p>\n

I carry the remnants of forgotten memories<\/p>\n

I serve as a mask in many rituals<\/p>\n

I invoke the gods with guttural cries<\/p>\n

and stamp the red earth<\/p>\n

with hard foot soles<\/p>\n

I write a sculpture of ice<\/p>\n

in January’s hypersensitive sun rays<\/p>\n

when the planet arches its back to the north<\/p>\n

and the light\u2019s ascending power has scorched<\/p>\n

my pupil<\/p>\n

so my eye is open, dark and sighted<\/p>\n

I am many creatures in one being<\/p>\n

wandering from here to the oldest of times<\/p>\n

the same at the beginning<\/p>\n

as when all is at an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From\u00a0afrika\u00a0(africa) 1998 translated by Susan Schwartz Senstad and the writer   I’m writing before darkness disappears for my african life each white day in snowy months each night in black reminiscence I’m writing so as not to disappear into the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"parent":35,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-240","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"featured_image_src":"","featured_image_src_square":false,"rbea_author_info":{"display_name":"arn104","author_link":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/author\/arn104\/"},"rbea_excerpt_info":"From\u00a0afrika\u00a0(africa) 1998 translated by Susan Schwartz Senstad and the writer   I’m writing before darkness disappears for my african life each white day in snowy months each night in black reminiscence I’m writing so as not to disappear into the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":241,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/240\/revisions\/241"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.uit.no\/llu001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}