Alice Miller

Ocean

1 The Lever | Translations: de
2 Born Breathing | Translations: de
3 The Heads | Translations: de
4 Countrymen | Translations: de
5 Saving | Translations: de
6 Fourteen Mistakes | Translations: de
7 Mirabell | Translations: de
8 Air | Translations: de
9 Ocean | Translations: de

Language: english

Translations: german (Meer)

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Ocean

We make a map to throw upon the world
to catch the unknown islands that grow thin
to stop the ocean surging up to meet
the feet of folk who used to know the tides
There’s never been a hierarchy of trees
and I know nothing but to clamber up
to watch the human heads I know below
and throw our map upon them as they go
because our screens refresh us every minute
and soon we’ll know just which paths to take
our programs will erase all cold all distance
to point to lands that reach beyond the myth
but now the water’s pouring up the hills
because we cannot map the ocean still

Categories:

social critique / cultural criticism, culture & science, water

Translations:

Language: german

Meer

Wir werfen Karten über diese Welt
um unbekannte Inseln im Schwinden zu erfassen
das Meer vom Steigen abzuhalten bevor es an
die Füße derer schwappt die wissen was Gezeiten sind
Es gab nie eine Hierarchie der Bäume
und ich kann nicht anders als hinaufzuklettern
um die vertrauten Menschenköpfe unten zu betrachten
und unser Kartenwerk im Gehen über sie zu werfen
weil unsre Schirme uns im Minutentakt erneuern
und wir bald wissen werden wo es langgeht
unsere Programme werden alle Kälte tilgen jede Ferne
die auf Länder jenseits aller Mythen weist
doch das Wasser läuft jetzt hügelan
weil wir das Meer noch immer nicht kartieren können

Aus dem Englischen von Nicolai Kobus

previous poem
(Air)

9 / 9

nächstes Gedicht
(The Lever)

listen to all poems

Alice Miller

* 08.12.1982, Wellington, New Zealand
lives in: Wien, Austria

Alice Miller is a writer from New Zealand living in Berlin and Vienna. She is the author of The Limits (Shearsman & Auckland University Press), and the forthcoming Nowhere Nearer (Liverpool University Press & Auckland University Press). She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the International Institute of Modern Letters. Alice’s work has appeared in Boston Review, Oxford Poetry, BBC Travel, Poetry London, Landfall, The Rialto, and The American Scholar. She has received the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award, the Royal Society of NZ Manhire Prize, a Glenn Schaeffer Fellowship, and has travelled to Antarctica courtesy of Antarctica NZ. She has also been a resident at the Michael King Centre, Massey University, the Grimshaw Sargeson Centre, and the Akademie Schloss Solitude. Blaue Stunde, an edition of her poems with a German translation, was published by Edition Solitude.