Elegy for Ann-Marie (2021 Utah Poetry Festival video)

 

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]