'Poetry rejoices...' Poem by Håkan Sandell

Poetry rejoices even if the culture dies,
over the girl with her first electric, how her high,
thin voice, amplified many times
over by the loudspeaker, is like a giant's
in the green grass of the festival site.
Over the fragile bells of digitalis, how they hide
the pistil and the pollen inside.
Rejoices over rain on the Faroe Islands,
over rendezvous on the Champs-Elysées at evening.
It rejoices over Japan, over Korea,
over arts refined over a thousand years—
the art of swordsmanship, or of drinking tea.
Rejoices over the poet, that his heart still beats.

TRANSLATED BY BILL COYLE