Electric Verses

Etusivu : Welcome to Electric Verses! : Henrika Ringbom

Henrika Ringbom

Henrika Ringbom

Henrika Ringbom (b. 1962) is a Finland-Swedish poet, who also writes prose and essays. She has published four collections of poems, the latest of which Den vita vinthunden (The White Greyhound, 2001), and a novel. In her work unite keenness to images and exact, mucial language.


EVERYTHING, AS IT IS

The sky cloudy, grey, it’s warm,
almost stifling. We walk
along the gravel road, the country road

The pines, their shoots

The warm dampness in the greenhouse. We drink
coffee, black coffee, buy scevola,
two garlic plants, a tomato plant, celery

Back along the road

The sky’s globe, clouds in layers. I long to be
nowhere else but here

From Den vita vinthunden (The White Greyhound), 2001. Translated by David McDuff.

  • The sky cloudy, grey
  • Soles of feet on warm stone
  • Excuse me, I have to get off
  • On my birthday I rose early
  • No one chooses not to be lead…
  • The first day when I walk around…
  • In the middle of the night
  • At about ten it was wonderfully
  • How dangerous the sky is to the eye
  • Oh to be a mouth
  • What all does the mouth not go…
  • In the great emptiness
  • To exist in every moment
  • Imagine that the road is
  • In the room concealed
  • What one says is
  • At the bottom of every eye
  • Like a jolt through