Peter Handke’s TO DURATION

Cannon Magazine / The Last Books, Amsterdam, has just announced that my translation of Peter Handke’s long poem To Duration will be published in December. 48 pages. Click HERE to pre-order the book.

And here a foretaste:

. . .

Duration cannot be relied on:

not even the pious

who attend mass daily,

not even the patient, the masters of waiting,

not even the loyal

who will always, steadfastly, be yours,

can be assured of its lifelong presence.

I know, perhaps,

that it becomes possible only

when I am able

to stay at my task

and to be vigilant at it,

attentive, unhurried,

presence of mind to the tips of my fingers.

And what is the task

that demands my persistence?

It will manifest itself

in affection for the living

– for one of them –

and in the awareness of an attachment

(even if only imagined).

This task, it is not large,

not special, not unusual, not superhuman,

not war, not a landing on the moon,

not discovery, not the work of a century,

not the scaling of a peak, not a kamikaze flight:

I share it with millions,

and with my neighbour as well as

with the dwellers at the ends of the earth

where, through a common task,

a world-centre arises identical

to my own.

Yes, this task from which, over the years, duration springs,

it is fundamentally inconspicuous,

not worth talking about

but worth holding on to through writing:

for it must be my main task.

It must be my true love.

And I must,

if the moments of duration are to spring from me

and give my stiff face a form

and insert a heart into my empty breast,

practice, year in and year out,

unconditionally,

my love.