Oh heiferiness and humanness

I just read a fantastic book called Danger of Verses. It consists of Finnish poems chosen by seven writers. Each writer has written a short essay of the poem chosen by him or her. The book was hilarious indeed. Then I found online the English version of this rural parody by the poet Ilpo Tiihonen. He is one of our most appreciated contemporary poets, born in 1950. In Finnish this poem was so cheerful and excellent that I thought his rural parodic scenes might be a joy for you too. Of course I and others who are not native English speakers miss its nuances but I know some can enjoy :)

A SUMMER EVENING’S SLIGHT CONCEPTUALNESS

Ah summer evening, and its eveningness,

its prodigious wonders and their bridgefulness

when the nightunited seamlessness

steals into one’s heart with restfulness

O heiferiness and humanness,

ah shivering shimmeringness,

innocents’ innocuousness

and vastness with its stresslessness –

five or six chicks of a dabchick,

and deep water, lapfulness.

Our blue sky’s mirrored changefulness!

the spruces’ tall topliness, their tips’ sacredness

the yellow-billed black singer’s flutiness.

Nested cosiness, mutual tootiness!

And oh the idler’s idling idleness

and the shuttling rower’s glidingness

on his holiday trip to goal-lessness

the fisherman’s undemanding uncatchingness

the innocent non-offendingness

of the leadhead’s letting-go-ingness.

Summer, great echoing summer’s heatstrokiness,

the haiku-puffs of the sauna’s smokiness, lip-lap

unsteady jettiness, lip-lap, rocking-about-edness

the naked skin’s nothing-about-it-edness

aerial echoing of seagulness

and goodies grilling for forkedness.

Ah gulfiness, lakiness, streaminess

ah featherlight set-free-again-ness

and seismic earth’s ecstatic staticness

and summer calm’s so easy boatliness.

Ah cows’ exuberant udderliness,

humanness, quiescentness,

ah Finnish horses’ trusty horsiness,

and foxcubs’ frisky foxiness,

hazelhens’ henness, snakes’ snakiness,

ah far-off-ness of quaky autumn, and its headachiness!

Oh microscopic wormy mouldiness

dandelions’ sunny harvest of goldiness

the headland’s swaying hayfulness

witchgrass’s whimsical playfulness

and sheep-sorrel’s sweet salt-tastiness!

Oh the saliva-licking of all unchasteness

hot musk-orchid’s scented headiness

passion flowers’ glad gift of unsteadiness

and the minty gluiness of sticky lipfulness

yes, and at the edge of happiness, thistliness.

But detail by detail the cosmic interdependenceness

and ref by ref its green inter-referenceness

sing the appendixness of human songfulness

Oh all the heiferiness, humanness, hoveringness

wafting cloud-loftiness, lofty melodiousness –

our heavenly household’s wallhung wise-sayingness –

oh summer cradling us, its total cradlingness.

Translated by Herbert Lomas (assisted by Soila Lehtonen) 

A summer evening’s slight conceptualness

III song: Summer symfony, dedicated to the author Joel Lehtonen (1881–1934)

From Eros (WSOY, 2002)

The Finnish lyrics can be found here.

Mosaic Monday

Natur-Donnerstag
I know, the poem is in English and it translates very poorly into German with Google.
But I wish you can enjoy the photos - and maybe learn some English...

I wish you enjoyed!