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The Roads Have Come to an End Now: Selected and Last Poems of Rolf Jacobsen (A Kagean Book)

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Rolf Jacobsen lived from 1907-1994 in Norway. He lived on the cusp of modernity, and certainly was witness to dramatic changes in society and technology. Some things, however, never change. Jacobsen created poems with a very human and very spiritual voice in the midst of a changing world. His poetry never fails to penetrate the emotional core as it probes issues such as death, change, and the natural world.
In his poem, The Age of the Great Symphonies, he juxtaposes the beauty of the music of a vanishing world with the harshness of the modern technological world. This subject seems as if it would be sad, but instead it is hopeful. He begins by stating that the "age of the great symphonies/is over", but we discover those great symphonies later on in the poem falling down like rain to a thirsty earth (we assume through the airwaves). It is comforting for me to think that all around me right now in waves that I cannot see or hear, are great symphonies. They inhabit the world around me, and all I need to do is turn on my radio to hear one.
Another favorite from this anthology is the poem, Sunflower. This poem asks the question "What sower walked over earth/which hands sowed/our inward seeds of fire?" It is a poem about death, and once again you might assume that such a poem would be dark, but instead it shines. Sunflower revisits the idea that in order for a flower to grow, a seed must fall into the earth and die. But it is "all for the sake of a sunflower that you haven't seen." How true, yet how hard to know before Spring arrives.
These poems will haunt you long after you read them, and you will never notice that they were originally written in Norwegian, the translation is flawless.