Knud Sørensen – Translations » The Summer

By Knud Sørensen

The landscape of summer
shall be populated
with cows:  waddling
pedestrians, four-legged
marvels, motivated
by insatiability and an ever-
wakeful curiosity.
Summer days
shall be filled
with productive laziness
with instinctive heavy cud-
chewing. Summer sounds
shall be the dull thuds
of ruminated nature
and summer’s joy
the broad meaty backs
that one’s hand likes
to give gentle pats
one quiet evening while the dew
starts to settle.

By Knud Sørensen “Sommeren” ©1976
Translated by Michael Goldman

First published in Meat for Tea, The Valley Review, June 2015

This bucolic poem can be found in Sørensen’s book Farming Dreams.