I instructed you in the art of war

And taught you how to conduct yourself with a man

How to read books and how to read faces

How to fight and how to rest

But now I see

How much I never said to you.

Often I wake in the night choking

On useless counsels.

KIN-JEH’S SECOND POEM ABOUT HIS SISTER

Through all the years when after long absences

I entered her house I seemed expected and the chair

Set ready and the kettle on the hob.

Laughing she told me of all the stupidities

That had occurred. Hers included

And even mine. And I was always expecting

Her light step to my door, ready

To lay all else aside when she came in. Our experiences

We recounted like historical events, we spoke

Of the eight nights and the return from Spain

The trip in the Ford

And bringing the rug with us.

FRUITLESS CALL

O faint sea-roaring in the black receiver!

No rapid heartbeat, only an empty tick!

And then a whispering, as of seven towns, comes over

And a tired voice says: svarer ikke.

And so the faraway room must be empty.

You are not here. And now you are not there.

As though I heard: the ship must be at sea

And quite beyond any call from any quarter.

Our dialogue that had not needed voices

(For we could hear in things that went unsaid

The questions, new ones, rising nonetheless)

Our dialogue has only now gone dead.

19TH SONNET

Encounter with the ivory guardians

One day when no news of you had come

I summoned the guardians, the six elephants,

To the Arc de Triomphe and they took up their stance

That night towards eleven on the Avenue de Wagram.

They eyed me, swaying slightly. I said to them:

When I left her in your protection

I ordered you to trample anyone

She made complaint about to strawberry jam.

They stood in silence till the largest beast

Lifting his trunk, malignly slowly

Pointed, trumpeting, to the guilty party: me.

Like thunder all six charged. I fled. So chased

To the post office and squinting frightened through

The window I wrote the letter I owed you.

THE GOOD COMRADE M.S.

I came to you as a teacher and as a teacher

I might have departed from you. But because I learned

I stayed. For later also

Finding refuge beneath the Danish thatch

Even then I did not leave you.

And you gave me one from among you

To go with me.

So that she will test and check

Everything I say; and from now on

Correct every line

Being schooled in the school of the combatants

Against oppression.

Since then, in frail health but

Cheerful in the spirit

She has strengthened me. Not corruptible

Even by me. Often

With a smile I cross out a line myself already guessing

What she would say about it.

But in other company she defends me

I have heard she got up from her sickbed