How to Manage

Niels Fredrik Dahl

Translated from the Norwegian by Becky L. Crook with Thilo Reinhard

NIELS FREDRIK DAHL is a Norwegian writer, born in 1957, whose work has been translated into several languages. He is the author of five novels and seven poetry collections. A book of selected poetry, Dette er et stille sted (“This is a quiet place”), was published in 2017.

BECKY L. CROOK is a literary translator who has translated the children’s poems of Norwegian writer Inger Hagerup. She is the founder of Sand, a literary journal in Berlin. She recently finished writing her first novel. When not dealing in words, she can otherwise be found in the woods, in her garden, in a book, or in conversation (with food!) with those she loves. She lives on an island near Seattle with her husband, daughter, and cat Momo.

THILO REINHARD is a translator and musician. In 1985, following studies at the University of California, Berkeley, he moved to Oslo, Norway, where he still makes his home. Reinhard translates from Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and German into English.

For Linn

How to manage, how to lie down next to the dog, to its breath, its warm heart, until something you thought would never

let go lets go, your arms, your tongue, everything has been recorded somewhere though we don’t know where, every

second of these years, these seven thousand days and nights, every caress, every cry and every sigh, every kiss and

every sadness, every touch, every speck of sun against the forest floor and it should be possible to read and understand

what it means to be you, be me, be with you, with me, follow you closely, your mouth, can you open your beautiful mouth,

we lie on the wave-scoured rock at the water’s edge, you are writing your book, the fjord lapping the stone is dark

turquoise, grey geese above us, the ocean is warm enough now for the quiet lives of seahorses, a stingray’s smile, and

for the jellyfish, who live on light, this is also a home, I know that you know that, but how to live, how to take in the

ears and flashing eyes of the roebuck in the wheat field which weathers from pale green to golden, the dog whimpers, and

I too would like to be a little closer, always a little closer to you, like a weary principle, maybe,

a stubbornness I’m not entitled to, but no quiet like that which is at the heart of your disquiet, without

gestures, closest to the skin, how to stand upright with one’s arms outstretched, how

to hold the fingers together, the palms facing downward, how to spin around on one’s own axis, how

to swirl like a dancing dervish while streams of sunlight are taken by the wind and a veil of fading green

is drawn across the grey silhouette of pine trees on the opposite side of the fjord, and when winter falls upon us,

you there in the snow, like it’s all new, like something you’ve never seen before, and then you’ve seen it, and then you

haven’t, once again anew, winter, winter, winter, every speck, every flake, every sliver, every

crystal, will it be white, yes it will, will it be peaceful, yes it will, if we’re playing, pretending that the flecks of

sunlight against the forest floor are linked together like some brilliant necklace lost in the cellar, if we pretend

that you are listening directly with your heart to every sound, the dog talking in its sleep every single night, the girl

calling out to you from the depth of a dream, you’re holding her warm body, you’re pulling away the dreams

from her forehead, you wake up some mornings to a withered world that needs saving,

breathe life into it, how to breathe, until far inland, across the quarry that’s lit up

all through the night, a white circle behind the eyelid when the day has shut, a sunspot turned inside out on the horizon,

the rain like jellyfish tendrils below the clouds, can it come here, do you think, can it drum us into

sleep and be there when we wake, the cool, dark sound outside, everything that happens to us is a riotous now and will

not let itself be remembered, now, now, now, now, like a breath of fire, outside, perhaps, it’s springtime again, all the

birds, unquiet and then happiness, under the blossoming tree, with open eyes, with open mouth, we are without age and

without fear, and the forest, the night, the grass is stored in our faces, in the light of our fingers