Beowulf: A New Translation

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 Beowulf: A New Translation


A dozen days instead of years, 

but who in this feather-flung haze 


is counting? Each evening one less 

mounting the roost, tucking wings


against a coming sure as night

itself, clucking what wordless things 


beg sounding before the door shuts  

and the woods awake. What liquid suns


we brood upon, what mornings

we warm in the hope of a hatch


before it’s time: metallic click of a latch, 

masked shadow squeezing through


a crack too small to fortify. Come morning

down-feathers will scuttle silently 


across the field like ships on a breeze. 

So this, then, Hrothgar, is how    


we know you, clipped and ruffled kings 

perched on the promontory, watching the sea.


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