Kim Simonsen / The biological composition of a drop of seawater is reminiscent of the blood in my veins / translated from the Faroese by Randi Ward

***

My father died this morning;                                  
all his life he sailed
the oceans of the world.
Now the waves break
as waves have broken
wave upon wave.
This is how the waves will
embrace the shores of this land:
everything
eddying layers
upon
layers.

***

The shore is full of jellyfish.
The question remains:
Have they decided
to end their lives here today
between beckoning anemones, limpets, and mussels.
Is there not something spectral about them     
as they float slowly through the sea—
as they are presently washed ashore,                                   
a violet, gelatinous materiality.

***

All water comes from the ocean.
All water returns to the ocean.
The first philosopher, Anaximander,
said all that is dying
returns to the element
from which it came.

***

Our memories of the fish,
of the little animals, the ones that always hid under stones
like the fingerling trout
my brother and I caught when we were young boys—
that’s what stayed with us,
but that’s also what never sank in:
the knowledge that we come from the ocean.
That every cell is full of water,
like the ocean itself,
that we are but a bleary-eyed blink
in the sweep of evolution’s dimming vision—
and that’s how the water within us is hidden from us,
even the tiniest ocean:
the womb from which we come.

***

I am a human
who belongs among other people,
just like my father. Each
and every fish in a shoal is
a luminous being—
behind them,
trailing behind them all,
are filaments of offspring.

***

The biological composition of a drop of
seawater is reminiscent of the blood in my veins,
both are filled with viruses and bacteria.
Out of the ocean we all came,
to the ocean we shall all return
the priest should have said.

Photo Credit: Thomas Koba

Kim Simonsen is a Faroese writer and researcher from the island of Eysturoy. He completed his PhD in Nordic Literature at the University of Roskilde and has authored seven books as well as numerous essays and academic articles. He is the founder and managing editor of Forlagið Eksil, a Faroese press that has published over 20 titles. In 2014, Simonsen won the M.A. Jacobsen Literature Award for his poetry collection Hvat hjálpir einum menniskja at vakna ein morgun hesumegin hetta áratúsundið (What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium, forthcoming from Deep Vellum in 2024). His latest poetry collection, Lívfrøðiliga samansetingin í einum dropa av sjógvi minnir um blóðið í mínum æðrum (The biological composition of a drop of seawater is reminiscent of the blood in my veins), was published by Verksmiðjan in 2023.

Randi Ward is a poet, translator, lyricist, and photographer from WV. She earned her MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the Faroe Islands and has twice won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Prize. Ward’s work has appeared in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Vencil: Anthology of Contemporary Faroese Literature, World Literature Today, Asymptote, and other publications. Her work has also been featured on Folk Radio UK, NPR, and PBS NewsHour. Cornell University Library established the Randi Ward Collection in its Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections in 2015. For more information, visit randiward.com/about/.