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Forvörðurinn

Thorarinn Eldjárn

Afi reykti pípi
í sextíu ár

og hékk þar á vegg
landslag úr norskum firði

Forvörður þvoði loks
málverkið
og fann lítið þorp
við rætur fjalls

forvörðurinn þvoði þorpið
og mannlíf kviknaði
allt að því menning

Forvörðurinn þvoði mannlífið
og allt í einu
skein í beran strigann


Thorarinn Eldjárn

from Ydd (Reykjavík: Forlagið,1984)

Reproduced by permission of the author and translator.

Tags:

art conservation Icelandic landscape painting restoration Translations

Translations of this Poem

The Restorer

Translator: Bernard Scudder


Grandfather smoked a pipe
for sixty years

and on the wall there hung
a landscape of a Norwegian fjord

Eventually the restorer washed
the painting
and found a little village
at the foot of a mountain

the restorer washed the village
and life was kindled
very nearly culture

The restorer washed the life
and all of a sudden
one could glimpse the naked canvas

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Thorarinn Eldjárnb.1949

Thorarinn Eldjárn was born in Reykjavik, studied at the Univesity of Lund and then returned to Reykjavik to live. He is a poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, translator and children’s author, and describes himself as first and foremost a...
More about Thorarinn Eldjárn

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