Today's theme is Distance. But unlike the last two Mondays where a poem emerged in MotherOwl's brain, just needing the final touches, this poem has been long in the making. It has morphed from a grumpy poem about forced digitalization and pollution, to an inane love your neighbour-thing, to end up as this flippant little verse
The Danish version is more despondent, less defiant than the English one.
-- 🐉 --
Delores fra Mumblings og Jenny fra Procrastinating Donkey skiftes til at opkaste et tema til et mandagsdigt. Dagens tema er afstand. Det måtte jeg grunde en hel del over, i modsætning til de foregående uger, hvor næsten færdige rim er opstået af sig selv i Uglemors omtågede hjerne.
Den danske version er lidt mere nedtrykt og lidt mindre trodsig end den engelske.
-- 🐲--
A distance is a far away,
a place to go another day.
Or maybe just a little time,
The time it takes to make a rhyme.
At distance everything looks fine,
The water's blue, the grass is green.
Why is it that we always yearn
For something new to see and learn?
What distance is the right to keep
to sleeping dragons - let them sleep.
Yet close enough to sneak a look
of challenges that we never took.
Oh distance, you have led astray
my mind to long for coming day.
But if it comes, we do not know.
All what we have is here and now!
-- 👁 --
En afstand - det er længere bort.
Måske en dag, så blir den kort.
Måske er det en times tid
en stakket stund, en ussel frist?
På afstand ser det herligt ud:
det grønne løv, en solbrændt hud.
Hvorfor er det vi længes mod,
de ting vi ikke helt forstod?
Hold afstand, bjørnen sover vist.
Kom vi for nær, blev enden trist.
Hvor tæt kan vi mon komme på
de eventyr vi så som små?
Åh afstand du har narret mig.
Jeg længes mod en anden vej
med eventyr, med gys og gru.
Men alt, jeg har er her og nu.
I always have the most fun just trying to figure out which word means 'comments'...but I got here..yay. And, I love your poem. It is so true, we never really want to get too close to truth do we? Best to watch from that safe distance. It was a hard topic because there are so many kinds of distance to choose from. My first attempt was a sad poem about the distance between two old people on a couch.
SvarSletYay, you hit the right button ;)
SletThank you. A poem about distance is often a sad one. I tried to keep an optimistic back door open.
You are putting us all to shame with your double poems, Uglemor! Well done. I wish I could read the Danish version, too, to see the difference. I especially like the third verse - it echoes how I felt about the situation in the poem I wrote for today. That man's anger was a sleeping dragon . . . and I was afraid to awaken it.
SvarSletDear Jenny, after almost 7 years of writing a bilingual blog I like this challenge. I've been writing poems since before I could write in a way that other people could read. But this blog is my first public outlet for any any poems of mine, except for one or two in the school papers (over 40 years ago). The contents, and indeed sometimes the rhymes are almost the same in both languages.
SletI'm happy that you understand my sleeping dragons, because yes that man of yours' anger was a sleeping dragon. (In Danish it's a bear, because of a children's song).
I'm happy that somebody care to read my words and even appreciate them. Thanks for co-hosting this challenge.
Very clever and well done. So often i look to the distance and think, then i will do such and such, but all we have is today.
SvarSletThank you, yes, it is hard to remember. We always long for things to come.
SletI love your poem. I never could write poetry, the words just don't come for me that way they do for stories. I like that you rote it in both languages, if we pay attention enough, we could learn a little Danish.
SvarSletThank you. The English and the Danish is not a word for word translation, it is a re-versification ... re-poetrification well, what ever not words but meaning, and sometimes feelings are reproduced.
SletWhen that is said, Danish is not so hard to read ;)