Home >> Poetry II >> Poetry II >> The Seed (Poem)

The Seed

 

 

 

Someone sows someone

Sows him in his head

Stamps the earth down well

 

Waits for the seed to sprout

 

The seed hollows out his head

Turns it into a mousehole

The mice eat the seed

 

They drop dead

 

The wind comes to live in the empty head

And gives birth to chequered breezes

 

 


 

                               —Vasko Popa (1922-1991)

 

translated from the Serbo-Croat by Anne Pennington

from The Thunder Mutters: 101 Poems for the Planet,

ed. Alice Oswald, 79. (2006)

 

 

 

COMMENTARY

 

“The existential tension toward the ground orders the entire existence of man, including his corporeal foundation. Whenever attempts are made to construe commonsense insights, which relate to the order of man’s entire existence, as ‘propositions’ according to the model of the natural sciences, and whenever attempts are made to seek in their background ‘principles’—putative axioms that could take the place of the real source of order –any such attempt is an assault on the structure of the realm of man’s being. Not only is every attempt of this kind a symptom of an existential disturbance but also a potential source of social disorder, insofar as it can induce disturbances in the rational consciousness of other people.”Anamnesis (vol 8) 410.

 

 

 

More Poetry....

 

 

 

Authors    First Lines     Titles

          Also see Poetry Index I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

Designed with the Firefox Browser in mind
Contents Copyright © Wagner Columbus Publishing Co Ltd