Gerður Kristný
Gerður Kristný, a fiction writer and poet from Iceland, is the author of five poetry collections, two novels, nine books for children, a travelogue and one biography. Widely awarded, her work has been translated into 21 languages. In 2011, the musical The Ball at Bessastadir, based on her fiction, was staged at Iceland’s National Theatre. Kristný has worked in broadcasting and is the former editor-in-chief of a literary monthly.
Poems translated by Victoria Cribb
New Year’s Morning
The only ones to have
survived the night
are a Japanese family
who have switched off
the neon signs in their heads
and made do with the light
over the mountains
When the boy breaks the ice-film
on the lake with his toe
a low crack sounds
like the snap of a wing
He catches up with his parents
on the bridge where they
quicken their pace
They mean to be safe
indoors before
darkness reimposes
its curfew
Patriotic Poem
The cold makes me
a lair of fear
places a pillow of
downy drift
under my head
a blanket of snow
to swaddle me in
I’d lay my ear to
the cracking of the ice
in the hope of hearing it
retreat
if I didn’t know
I’d be frozen fast
The ice lets no one go
My country
a spread deathbed
my initials stitched
on the icy linen
North
Slow as sperm whales
we glide through the gloom
which is white
here on the heath
It holds fast to its own
conceding only
one post at a time
For an instant they flash
on the side of the road
like the little girl’s matches
in the fairytale
lighting us
until we return
to the hole in the ice
to breathe
Night
As you fall asleep
your arms slide apart
no shelter there for me now
the hatches burst
and the sea breaks through
I sink
through a thousand fathoms
not one of which
enfathoms me
Slowly the seabed
subsides
beneath the weight of my sleep
Foreboding heads my way
soon it will glide
into my dream
like a visitation
Departure
At the end
of the ramp
I inadvertently glance back
but you have vanished from view
Beyond the glass
a new day lifts itself
off the pavement
the blue of the mountains
spreads across my mind
as I turn
to continue on my way
I trip on my hem
my journey’s designed
for a bigger woman than me
The plane waits on the runway
and I feel as if
the propeller’s bitter blades
have entered my heart
Anne Frank
By day there’s not a peep
from Anne who lives
in widowhood overhead
– except when she dozes off
over her diary
drops it on the floor
Otherwise not a peep
It’s another matter at night
then there’s all hell of a hubbub
Anne’s friends pound up the stairs
hollering their hellos
and crack open a feast
Some with a bottle of buttermilk
others nursing eggs
Towards dawn the neighbours are fed up
of fiddles and folksongs
The guests depart in haste
melting into the walls
When the police force the door
Anne sits at the kitchen table
writing
Triumph
The farmer drives gloating
through the district
vixen dead on the hood
He laid siege to her lair
in his jeep
so the animal smelt
the stench of petrol
not man
No one mentions
Achilles or Hector
and I know how to
hold my tongue