Fredagsdiktet: Myrtle

Forrige dagen benyttet jeg en fritime til å henge litt på skolebiblioteket (jeg kommer altså ikke over hvor stor bonus det er å ha bibliotek på jobben!) og snuse litt i dikthyllene. Det er sjelden noen kamp om plassen i akkurat den delen av rommet, så jeg kan boltre meg fritt og ta meg god tid. Snuse skikkelig på bøkene. Jeg lånte med meg et par stykker også, deriblant The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997. Her er en smakebit.



Myrtle

How funny your name would be
if you could follow it back to where
the first person thought of saying it,
naming himself that, or maybe
some other persons thought of it
and named that person. It would
be like following a river to its source,
which would be impossible. Rivers have no source.
They just automatically appear at a place
where they get wider, and soon a real
river comes along, with fish and debris,
regal as you please, and someone
has already given it a name: St. Benno
(saints are popular for this purpose) or, or
some other name, the name of his
long-lost girlfriend, who comes
at long last to impersonate that river,
on a stage, her voice clanking
like its bed, her clothing of sand
and pasted paper, a piece of real technology,
while all along she is thinking, I can
do what I want to do. But I want to stay here.

(John Ashbery)