Sunday with Scorpions
Rolf Gjedsted
Translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman
Our first scorpion lay beneath a stone
of black slate I lifted up
on a south-facing slope,
during mass one Sunday
outside of Orgive, a white town in Sierra Nevada.
A pale and transparent scorpion
stood there before my face
with its poison claw lifted in the sun,
waiting for my movements
at the entrance to its nest in the ground.
The rosemary bushes scented the air,
and the giant prickly pear were in bloom.
While we observed one another,
time stood still that Sunday in May.
Then the scorpion backed into its hole…
Our friend, Evaristo, was bit four times
by scorpions during the course of his fifty years.
The poison lasted twelve hours each time,
and then he was fine again, probably because he was healthy.
It’s about the same as a bite from a viper.
In the mountains children pour lighter fluid
around a scorpion on Sundays,
and let it commit suicide
with a sting in its neck from its own poison claw,
after mass, as the ground briefly flares up.
Søndag med skorpioner
Vor første skorpion lå under en sten
af sort skifer, jeg løftede op
på en sydvendt skråning,
under messen en søndag
uden for Orgiva, en hvid by i Sierra Nevada.
En bleg og gennemsigtig skorpion
sad dér foran mit hoved
med sin giftklo hævet i solen,
ventende på mine bevægelser
foran indgangen til sin rede i jorden.
Rosmarinbuskene duftede,
og de kæmpe figenkaktus var i blomst.
Mens vi betragtede hinanaden,
stod tiden stille den søndag i maj.
Så gik skorpionen baglæns tilbage i sit bo…
Vor ven, Evaristo, var blevet bidt fire gange
af skorpioner i løbet af sine halvtreds år.
Giften havde hver gang virket i tolv timer,
så blev han rask igen, sikkert fordi han var sund.
Det er næsten det samme som et hugormebid.
I bjergene hælder børnene tændvædske
omkring en skorpion om søndagen,
og lader den begå selvmord
med et stik i nakken fra sin egen giftklo,
efter messen, mens jorden flammer et øjeblik.
Danish author, musician, painter, and sculptor Rolf Gjedsted (1947-2022) wrote fifty-five works of poetry, fiction, translation, and non-fiction. Gjedsted never achieved great notoriety during his lifetime, but he was fearless in penetrating the substance of the written word. Gjedsted owned the stone cabin in Spain where Federico García Lorca lived before being murdered, and Gjedsted wrote many poems there.
Michael Favala Goldman (b.1966) is a poet, jazz clarinetist and translator of Danish literature. Among his seventeen translated books are Farming Dreams by Knud Sørensen and Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen (a Penguin Classic). His seven books of original poetry include the award-winning Small Sovereign and What Minimal Joy. He lives in Northampton, MA, where he has been running poetry workshops since 2018. https://michaelfavalagoldman.com/.
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