Poetry Snack: Rolf Jacobsen

8/19/05 This morning for the first time in what seems like months, it rained here. As my wife and I were having breakfast, we both commented on how nice it was to have a day to sit and watch the rain. There is something necessary in having the occassional melancholy day.

What follows is a poem by Rolf Jacobsen translated by Robert Bly, which I found in the excellent poetry anthology The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart:

Sunflower by Rolf Jacobsen

What sower walked over the earth,
which hands sowed
our inward seeds of fire?
They went out from his fists like rainbow curves
to frozen earth, young loam, hot sand,
they will sleep there
greedily, and drink up our lives
and explode it into pieces
for the sake of a sunflower that you haven't seen
or a thistle head or chrysanthemum.

Let young rain of tears come.
Let the calm hands of grief come.
It's not all as evil as you think.