Whispers by Jihane Mossalim
Sillä jokainen tarvitsee avaran tilan, seinät
tuekseen, niistä
kohoavan kodin.
Siellä on Jacasserkin valtias,
kaupunkilainen, tarjoaa
lasillisen ystävälle avoimin sylin,
petosta pelkäämättä,
koko pullon jos niikseen tulee
ja tulee se.
Aamuyöllä ystävä
roikkuu seinään naulattuna
Jacasser havahtuu ja muistaa,
jurtta olisi kotina kevyempi,
vain erämaassa on oikeita ystäviä,
jokainen talo vankila,
kivitalo kuoleman peitenimi.
Pelkkään arotuuleen
esi-isät nojasivat,
avaruuden tyhjään.
~Jarkko Tontti
Because everyone needs a roomy place, walls
for support, a home
rising from them.
Even Jacasser is the master there,
urbane, offering
a glass to a friend with open arms,
unafraid of treachery,
a whole bottle if it comes to that
and it does.
In the small hours the friend
hangs nailed to the wall
Jacasser awakes and remembers,
a yurt would make a lighter home,
the only real friends are in the wilderness,
every house a prison,
a stone house code for death.
The winds of the steppes were all
his forefathers had to lean on,
the empty of space.
~Trans. from Finnish by Lola Rogers
Jarkko Tontti is a poet, novelist, essayist and lawyer. He is an Executive Board Member of PEN International and a former president of Finnish PEN. His first poetry collection ‘Vuosikirja’ (Book of Years, 2006) won the Kalevi Jäntti literature prize for young authors, and his poems have been translated into many European languages. He has worked in the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Local Court of Espoo, in the Parliament of Finland and at the University of Helsinki.
Lola Rogers is a freelance literary translator living in Seattle. She has translated numerous novels and contributed translations of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry to a variety of journals and anthologies.Â
