It has been a warm day. Jeff and Jan were here to play with the kittens. I close the evening with a poem by Jaan Kaplinski.
Once I Got a Postcard from the Fiji Islands
Once I got a postcard from the Fiji Islands
with a picture of sugarcane harvest. Then I realized
that nothing at all is exotic in itself.
There is no difference between digging potatoes in our
Mutiku garden
and sugarcane harvesting in Viti Levu.
Everything that is is very ordinary
or, rather, neither ordinary nor strange.
Far-off lands and foreign peoples are a dream,
a dreaming with open eyes
somebody does not wake from.
It's the same with poetry - seen from afar
it's something special, mysterious, festive.
No, poetry is even less
special than a sugarcane plantation or potato field.
Poetry is like sawdust coming down from under the saw
or soft yellowish shavings from a plane.
Poetry is washing hands in the evening
or a clean handkerchief that my late aunt
never forgot to put in my pocket.
by Jaan Kaplinski - Translated from the Estonian by the author with Sam Hamill and Riina Tamm.
