Oh Life Like the Grass - Arthur Lundkvist

[Larry Robinson]

Oh Life Like the Grass

Grass walks through the world,
the fullest and greenest river of the wind.
Grass is always walking,
to assail the haunches of the mountains, the sleeping cities,
over the plateaus, the savannas, the steppes
where the centaur remains unvanquished,
where distances resound under the hoofs of horses,
where milk ferments in tents of felt under a moon with bridled eyes.
Grass 
carries the rain on its millions of shoulders,
it holds back the soil with its millions of toes.
Grass without agony knots its frail fingers 
around a skull.
The tireless grass works, it doesn’t hesitate,
it traces a path and follows it
and responds to each menace by growing.
Grass loves the world as much as it loves itself,
grass is happy, whether times are hard or not.
Grass fades away rooted, the grass road
standing
together, countless, profuse.
Grass accompanies people and bows
before the memory that passes to the forgotten.
Grass makes a bed for the unicorn’s horn,
for the ax of the indigenous, 
grass makes itself eyelashes to protect the spring.
Grass stands out with its high black bouquets
the animals killed by lightning.
The field mouse
scratches the grass shivering,
grass without limit,
servant of the soil, servant of animals,
that dies by cold or fire,
that always comes back to life
and never dreams itself tooth or blade:
oh life like the grass.

	- Arthur Lundkvist
	(Translated from the French of Jean-Clarence Lambert by Gwynn O’Gara)
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