Edith Södergran: Luck Cat

I have a luck cat in my arms,
it spins threads of luck.
Luck cat, luck cat,
make for me three things:
make for me a golden ring,
to tell me that I am lucky;
make for me a mirror
to tell me that I am beautiful;
make for me a fan
to waft away my cumbersome thoughts.
Luck cat, luck cat,
spin for me some news of my future!


Tr. David McDuff. From Södergran's first collection published in 1916. She was an astonishingly gifted naive poet, under-appreciated in her own time but now given her due. She was also linguistically gifted: Swedish was the fourth language in which she wrote poetry. And, of course, she was a cat lover...