https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFsqm4Czicg
ELEGY FOR ANN-MARIE
Translation was her expertise.
She moved from word to world in grace –
Interpreting the gist of truth
With love that helped her hand replace
One sentence for an equal thought –
One meaning for another sense –
She captured idioms of time
In native lyric resonance.
She taught the brilliant and the meek –
She crossed the channel for her friends –
Secured the children of her nest –
Bequeathed her heart – bestowed her best.
She guided me from Park to Hägg
At Stockholm’s University –
Propounded works that Poets make –
Translating Light’s diversity.
And now she moves to other realms –
Traverses new dimensions there –
Reversing mortal pains to odes
That celebrate a brighter sphere.
I see her at the Blue Hall feast –
I see her walking on the stairs –
I see her greeting loved ones gone –
I see her free from this life’s cares.
Her Presence honors one and all –
She wears a sapphire velvet Gown
While dancing in the Golden Hall
Of laureates and Triple-Crowns.
(1 February 2018, Provo, Utah)
[To Ann-Marie Vinde, translator of Emily Dickinson and Ford Madox Ford]