Extract Pia Tafdrup

Good Night

 
Pia Tafdrup from Tarkovskijs heste, 2006. Translated by David McDuff


My father is being dressed
in a nightshirt.
When I was a child
he sprinkled
stardust and moon gravel
down on my eyes,
When I was a child
I spoke as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child.
Every good night story
                   I received
had its own colour.
My father told them so a blind man
under darkness’s bell
would be able to see
                           a rainbow.
I slept and dreamt
the impossible
far away from the world’s anxiety.
I turn around,
          turn towards him,
see in my father’s eyes
stardust and moon gravel.
Now the night is coming –
                            the long night.
Milky ways of morphine
murmur
through his body
                  with the light’s heaviness
                                        of pain’s cessation.