Trafika Europe 11 - Swiss Delights

Tamangur + 11 Poems

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. Flesh and grass, grass and flesh, Grandmother mutters, what nonsense! At night, Grandmother’s unbound hair is like the grass in spring when just freed of the snow, but in the morning her hair hangs like a light cloud down her back. She lowers the sound of the radio and turns her face to the door. Come here, she says and takes the child onto her lap. Grandfather’s hand-knit socks reach all the way up to the child’s knees, the heels of the socks hang off the child’s calves like empty sacks. The heel is thicker and heavier than the rest of the sock and knit from wool of a different color. Knit with doubled yarn for hunting, Grandmother says and plucks gently at the heel. He had feet like silk, she says, all white and innocent, white as snow. Whenever she thinks of Grandfather in Tamangur, she gazes up at the ceiling with that look. He had feet like silk, she says and looks through the ceiling at the heavens. She likes looking at the clouds most of all. Tamangur must be up there, the child thinks. But you can’t see anyone up there.

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