Cecilia Hansson

Ice Suite

Translation: Bernhard Hagen

The Strait of Tjuvholm and the whole bay is packed with ice.
Snow creaks under the feet, the sun sparkles in the back.
I squint, but anyhow see all the way to the horizon.

*

Earlier: I was in some way carefree, as if I had been spared.
But now I know that death can come anytime.
Even to a child. To live with that knowledge,
I am not really sure how one can do it.

*

The sharpness of the sun, the absence of sound.
I am here and now and then at the same time.
I remember how afraid I was to dip my head underwater as a child.

*

Millions of cells, programmed
to live a while and then rot away, disappear.

*

When I gave birth to my child, I let nature take over.
It could break anytime, but we held.

*

The ice that carries me.
I live in a mercy.

*

In the distance, the ice calves, splits into masses of water.
A cracking noise that booms across the whole bay.

*

Mercy is something else than I had earlier believed.
A temporary reprieve from the nothingness.

*

Grandpa died out here, in an ice hole.
Winter fishing, the recklessness.
Despite it being his land.

*

Ice is never sentimental.
One day it will cover everything again.

*

From water we come, to water we all shall return.

*

The blinding light that just lasts, the wind changes direction.
The whiteness reflects in the sun.

*

The almost unbearable spring light.
The too unpredictable ice.

*

My child shall live forever.
That is how it must be.

*

The beauty of creation: the utmost cruelty.

*

To turn around. The back, the memory away from the strait.
The foot sinks into the snow.

*

The sun in the eyes. All wetness that freezes into ice.