Milton's ghost / garden sense

GARDENSENSIBILITIES

"the names are written on signs/the growth is tall and thick in
the garden everything finds its name/full with held breath
and rustling


what shall I say in a garden where everything has a name
nothing?


*


yet another question: what
can I say?


justice requires imagination/requires
ornament/profusion/poetry/not
exposure/thus truth becomes profusion/it merely states what is there


once more and nothing else


*


in a garden where everything has a name nothing
is possible/but


does everything have a name?/does that garden exist?


in a garden where some things have names and some do not everything is


possible/everything humanly possible


in such a garden


nothing nothing human is foreign to it here is precisely


namedrowning/nameless


*


inside the fence/what can I say?


nametangled


*


I give


buttons, fringes, umbels, leaves, bulbs, and pods their names to
enjoy them all the more and hear them rustle as the


buttons, fringes, umbels, leaves, bulbs, pods,
and berries


they are/and let them banish my dejection


*


a garden where I have called everything by its proper name


where I can give things their names/only at night at night is
enough/it is sudden salvation


here I will quench my namethirst


*


here I will rest armtangled


*


where I have called by its proper name/all that should be called


by name
and let the rest be


a waiting rustling place/what does it wait for? what does it wait for?


to speak of things that have no names


yet/which are so small/or to think of things so evil they no longer
have a name/with held breath/not
allowed to have a name anymore


should nothing
human be foreign to me? I hope so or else


I hope not


*


the profusion is always there/even when it is a 
profusion that no one seems to need


*


everything may have a name but
I could come up with new ones for the lot if I wanted because
I am awake alone so


green fans red beads blue/veils and reveals/healthy and unhealthy
night with steeplehigh lightning


and even universal laws feel voluntary/now
small tortoiseshell/dwell in my tiny tortoise


shell


now


*


gardens seem more humane than
humans/with all their costumes


the special order


*


neither too much freedom nor too little


to speak is so human it is like the
avenue of sphinxes/speechless faces/stoneheavy meaning not one
word over the lips/while all forms/the trees the houses flowers and windows


and the neighbors’ curtains and the living rooms behind them maybe they are quiet
quiet living rooms


no one is innocent but some are pure and many
many do have wings


*


but the costumes


reality/which is why the unadorned is sphinx-like/like a thing without a name


*


the garden grows thicker and thicker


more and more hanging/full/dry


nametangled/is all that just ornament? it is
profusion/excess/ornament if ornament is inevitable/what can I say?


goodnightshades
goodnightshades


the garden is quiet before fruiting/tonight the names set


sail"


© 2010, Ursula Andkjær Olsen
From: Have og helvede
Publisher: Gylendal, Copenhagen, 2010


© Translation: 2010, Thom Saterlee
Publisher: First published on PIW, 2010