The North

I. Dear Nivå Bugt,

At the sculpture garden,

The figures, grown

On a green lawn—

The clouds part, and the ceaseless

Blue descends, again.

Down by the Sound, the water

Calls, and the residents

Claw at the light, to twist

In her direction. But iron legs

Hold steady, leave them still,

Below the trees, icons of the garden

Tasting the late-summer Nordic air

For a hint of motion

From the shifting rivers of clouds

Above.

And I saw the Prophet,

He knew,

The sunken face,

The images of treetops,

The pulse of gravity

As it swallowed,

The pain of fires,

Burning constant,

In the subterranean

Dark,

Could taste,

With hollow jowls,

The friction,

Longing,

That plastered his charcoal skin,

In liquid, silhouetted lines

On the white canvas.

Blumengarten, ohne Figur

You said.

The flowers dreamed

Of color, woke

In the twilight

Before getting

To form.

Not because

The former was more

Fundamental, but

Because,

Through the misty lights

And the hovering clouds

Of the rising sun

And dying moon,

One can only see

The reds and purples,

Greens and blues,

Stained, like church glass

Obscured, in a flood,

And no longer remember

When they woke,

Or if

They were still

Dreaming.

Blumen und Wolken

Did the blue trees,

And the red flowers,

And the yellow flowers

Remember

The storm

That last shook them,

Turned them away?

Did the storm,

The threshing black and white

Of the clouds

Remember

The barricades

Between Earth and sky,

Before it sunk

And the storm

Was allowed

To rise

Like a wave

Against the curved foundation

Of a hill,

Blow rains

Against the tranquil stems,

(turned in trepidation)

Of the flowers?

By the Sea

Thirty-five Kroner

For rhubarb

And raspberry juice.

I walk down the lawn.

It’s warmer

Than the past few days.

The sun reflects

A blue sky

In the water,

And the tangible seedlings

Of somnambulance,

Bleed into the green canvas

Of the Earth

And the silver and blue

Of the water

And sky.

Sincerely,

A woodcut face.

II. Dear Abisko

Do the shrubs

And Arctic grasses,

Lichen and moss,

Watch the emerald fires

Cascades beyond the mountains,

across the sky

Above them,

Set, like Plato, their ideals

As reverent, ever-reaching forms

Towards the liquid malachite

And never knowing

The monuments,

The green titans, budding

In the forests, just

To the south,

Cracking the sky,

Seeping green blood

To the northern edge

Of the world,

But only tasting

The sun

Who burns

In her single hour

In the dead of winter

This far north?

Sincerely,

A dying light

III. Dear North Sea

From the sky

The phytoplankton

Shine turquoise

In the otherwise deep blue

Of the sea.

The sun, setting,

In the southwest,

Catches the face

Of the water,

And,

From the train,

One could be forgiven

To think,

(before fading

Into sleep)

That no shade of blue

Could be darker,

Than the ceaseless tension

Of the water,

Until night comes

And the sky

Sets

On the water,

And the memories

Of the ice

In the north.

Sincerely,

The one falling asleep

On the train.