José raised his glass and made a toast:
Salud!
The strong anise liquor
and the afternoon sun
had again brought everything to a standstill.
He gave me a penetrating look:
Young people demand the impossible.
They want everything!
It must be a fad.
He spit a glob of saliva
at a mangy dog
that was creeping toward our table.
They are seeking perfection,
something better, they think.
Then they move to the city,
and become unhappy.
There a person cannot learn to live.
He looked at me earnestly.
There are too many going at it there.
Only a few
receive an honorable share.
They call it “career,”
and “the modern life.”
He leered at the dog.
Veneno!
Their “perfect” is poison.
The complete is something else,
something more,
do you understand?
I nodded soberly,
and took a good look at him.
The complete is like life itself.
It is both shit
and the essence of flowers.
But you know what you’ve got.
He laughed,
and then turned serious again.
The complete is
like one of the old singing games
we played when I was a child.
He stood up drunk,
tried to sing something,
did a couple of dance steps,
but was about to topple.
The complete is like this,
like an old singing game,
with lots of steps,
notes, and movements,
where something has to go wrong
for the game to continue.
It’s not fashionable
to waste time
on useless games like that.
He sat back down,
toasted with a “Salud.”
I drank too,
what else should I do.
I didn’t know
if I had learned something.
But the afternoon sun
had nearly disappeared
behind the town church spire,
as it had done a
thousand times before.
The complete,
or just the perfect.
I wasn’t going to quibble
over words with José.
But I did mumble something
about “survival…”
I knew José didn’t
find me worthy of an answer anyway.

Translated from the Danish by Michael Favala Goldman.

Michael Favala Goldman is a translator of Danish literature, a poet, educator, and jazz clarinetist. He has translated sixteen books of Danish poetry and prose, including Dependency, book three of The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen, which was selected among the New York Times’s Ten Best Books of 2021. His third book of poetry, Small Sovereign, was awarded First Prize in the 2022 LA Book Festival. He lives in Northampton, MA, where he has been running poetry critique groups since 2018.  

 

José løftede sit glas og skålede:
– Salud!
Den stærke anislikør
og eftermiddagssolen,
havde igen sat alt i stå.
Han så betydende på mig:
– De unge kræver det umulige.
De vil ha alt!
Det er vist moderne.
Han sendt en spytklat
efter en skabet hund,
der krybende nærmede sig bordet.
– De søger det perfekte,
noget bedre, tror de.
Så tar de ind til byen,
og blir ulykkelige.
Der inde kan man ikke lære at leve.
Han så indtrængende på mig.
– De er for mange om det hele der.
Det er kun få,
der får en værdig del.
De kalder det “karriere,”
og “det moderne liv.”
Han skulede efter hunden.
– Veneno!
Deres “perfekte” er gift.
Det fuldkomne er noget andet,
noget mere,
forstår du det?
Jeg nikkede alvorligt,
og så opmærksomt på ham.
– Det fuldkomne er som selve livet.
Det er både lort
og destillerede blomster.
Men man ved hvad det er.
Han grinede,
men blev så alvorlig igen.
– Det fuldkomne er
som en af de gamle sanglege,
man legede da jeg var barn.
Han rejste sig beruset,
forsøgte at synge noget,
tog et par dansetrin,
men var ved at vælte om.
Det fuldkomne er sådan,
som en gammel sangleg,
med mange trin,
toner og bevægelser,
hvor noget skal gå galt,
for at legen kan fortsætte.
Det er ikke moderne,
at bruge tid
på den slags nytteløse lege.
Han satte sig igen,
og skålede sit “salud.”
Jeg drak også,
hvad skulle jeg ellers gøre.
Jeg vidste ikke,
om jeg var blevet klogere.
Men eftermiddagssolen
var næsten forsvundet
bag landsbykirkens spir,
som den havde gjort det
tusinde gange før.
Det fuldkomne,
eller det perfekte kun.
Jeg ville ikke strides
med José om ord.
Men jeg mumlede vist noget
om “overlevelse…”
Jeg vidste at José alligevel ikke
ville værdige mig noget svar.

            1989

Danish author, musician, painter, and sculptor Rolf Gjedsted (1947–2022) wrote fifty-five works of poetry, fiction, translation, and nonfiction. Gjedsted never achieved great notoriety as a writer during his lifetime, but his poetry reveals his facility with musicality and the transformative power of language. Also a black belt and karate instructor, Gjedsted was fearless in penetrating the substance of the written word. Gjedsted owned the stone cabin in Spain where Federico García Lorca lived before he was killed, and Gjedsted wrote many of his poems there.