On the fields between Vilsbøl plantation and Nors
Havreland, there’s a small pond, impossible to backfill.
Every autumn it floods its banks, swallowing
a portion of the valley from Nors Lake to Thisted.
In summer, cows bathe there, unaware of its bottomless
depth my father tried to measure by dipping a pole into it.
The pole disappeared so swiftly that as a boy I believed
it must be sticking out somewhere on the world’s underside
and a Chinese dragon could be shimmying
back up through the dark of its water which
made me hope that my story would easily trump
those old dull tales of the Loch Ness monster.
(Translated by Peter Graarup Westergaard/Mary-Jane Holmes)
You can buy ‘Danish Northwest – Hygge Poems from the Outskirts” here: https://www.troubador.co.uk/bookshop/poetry-short-stories-and-plays/danish-northwest/
PETER GRAARUP WESTERGAARD 
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