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Translator: José Luis Rico
Planet (Planeetta)
Otava 2016
The storm’s eye is pretty and made of silver. I’m sure the storm has two eyes. They’re the same the graceful, red-beaked, red-footed seagull has, whose pupils are at the center of a smooth, glistening ice field. She has two eyes, although you can usually see only one: if the seagull stared at you with both, it would be a meaningful moment, a fleeting stereoscopy, the instant of the equinox; soon you would have vanished, glided to the other side of her field of vision, rising then from the right side.
The storm’s eye watches through the peeping hole, its periscope shows the place it should head. The other eye looks to the other side, sees the entire width of the sky it sucks air from. What is here, is not there, and what hauls the sea along is absent there and the void in turn summons the water.
Time prevents all of us from being at the same time,
from drawing the same breath.
Time prevents us from condensing in one point.
Time prevents all of us from being the same self
and it prevents us from reaching our prime immediately after birth.
It’s thanks to time that the signpost doesn’t stand
where the thing it signals is,
but that it points at a distance.
Because of time, the clock’s face is round and not a dimensionless point,
and the hand’s tip can travel on an orbit in the distance.
Like the godwit’s, the planet’s eyes are on the two sides of the head,
the loved one’s gaze transforms,
the paintings’ eyes seem to follow you when walking by
from west to east but the loved one’s eyes don’t follow
you suddenly walk past them.
Suddenly you end up on the other side of the gaze. The satellite dish
receives the signal with its concave, bowl-shaped surface
but wouldn’t it take a far wider part of the cosmos onto its lap
if it were convex?
On the hilltop she spins and rotates her open arms
harnessing the transmission area’s width.
The eyes have gathered in the front, side by side, seeing the same thing.
Like fastening hooks.
Pauliina Haasjoki (b. 1976) is a poet, essayist, and active member of the publishing co-op Poesia. She has published poetry books since 1999.
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