Words on traveling in your mind

The other day as I was biking home, I found myself listening to music and lyrics I have never heard before. I had pressed random play on my Iphone and amazingly what played was a song about “traveling in the mind”. A perfect fit on how I imagine, many of us feel and how it is sometimes good “to just be still at home”. It was also a song about how we always have the freedom to dream about remote places, without actually leaving our home.

The lyrics are a poem by Halfdan Rasmussen, a Danish poet. He is like a true “star” among kids and families in Denmark for his clever, playful lyrics and rimes. The original text is in Danish and belowis s slighly edited English, google translate version – it can also be listened to on Spotify

 

Noget om billigrejser…

– Halfdan Rasmussen, Tosserier: 2. samling (1952)

 

Jorden drejer om sin akse
med en masse byer på,
London, Skive, Rom og Fakse,
Novgorod og Åbenrå.
Alle steder bor der mensker,
som er højst forskellige.
En er russer, en er svensker,
og en del er hellige.

 

Jeg har hus på denne klode,
hus med lokum, høns og hø.
Jeg er glad og vel tilmode
og vil meget nødig dø.
Og når jorden drejer roligt
med mit lille husmandssted,
syns jeg det er helt utroligt,
at jeg osse drejer med.

 

Jeg kan sidde ved mit vindu
når det løber fuldt af vand,
mens jeg tænker på en hindu
i det fjerne Hindustan.
Mon en sådan udenlandsker
sidder drømmende som jeg,
mens han tænker på en dansker,
som sandsynligvis er mig?

 

Mon hans kone bruger briller?
Er hun liså køn som min?
Mon han har en søn der spiller
på vemodig violin?
Har hans datter papillotter?
Er hun dejlig og banal?
Eller tømmer hun mon potter
på et hinduhospital?

 

Se, nu går den satans hane
og gør hønsene besat!
Den skal slagtes en af da’ne,
så det er da noget pjat –
Mon de frække hinduhaner
siger kykliky som vor,
eller har de andre vaner
som kun Muhammed forstår?

 

Nu er solen atter fremme.
Hanen bruger sin alarm.
Det er rart at være hjemme
ved sin egen vindueskarm.
Jorden drejer om sin akse,
drejer rundt med muld og vand.
Der er langt fra mig til Fakse.
Der er langt til Hindustan.

 

Something about cheap travel… (google translate with minor corrections)

– Halfdan Rasmussen 

 

The earth revolves around its axis
with a lot of cities on,
London, Skive, Rome and Faxe,
Novgorod and Åbenrå.
Everywhere people live,
which are at most different.
One is Russian, one is Swedish,
and some are holy.

 

I have a house on this globe,
house with toilet, chickens and hay.
I am happy and well pleased
and really don’t want to die.
And when the earth turns calmly
with my little own place,
I think it’s absolutely incredible,
that I also turn.

 

I can sit at my window
when it is full of water,
while thinking of a Hindu
in the distant Hindustan.
Such a foreigner
sitting dreamy like me,
while thinking of a Dane,
which is probably me?

 

Does his wife wear glasses?
Is she a pretty gender like mine?
He has a son playing
on a melancholic violin?
Does his daughter have papillots?
Is she nice and banal?
Or does she empty pots
at a Hindu hospital?

 

Look, now it’s the damn rooster
that make the chickens obsessed!
It has to be slaughtered one of these days,
so it is a bit of a mess –
I wonder if the naughty Hindu chicks
says buck buck like ours,
or have the other habits
which only Muhammad understands?

 

Now the sun is up again.
The rooster uses his alarm.
It’s nice to be home
by its own window sill.
Earth revolves around its axis,
turns with mud and water.
It’s far from me to Faxe.
There is a long way to Hindustan.