The deepest sounds

 

Lars Gustafsson (1936-2016)

 

On the Deepest Sounds

 

A stop exists in large organs,

a thirty-two-foot bass, contra-fagotto

 

mighty thrumming air column, late autumn

when in the wells the water rises

 

the subterranean mesh of streams and wells.

And it is more ache than sound.

 

At this lower limit where music ends

something else wishes to begin,

more body than sound, body and darkness,

and late autumn when the wells rise,

but since it is under the ground,

under the music, under the lament

— it does not wish to begin, does not begin

and therefore does not exist. 

 

Now it is nearer, now it is plain!

Now it is straightway heard throughout the expanse.