A dark, heavy Sunday morning
before the mistle thrush arrives,
I stay indoors, singing alone

humming a slow
Hasidic nigun
perhaps lifting the low clouds a little

through detonations in burning cities
through closed doors,

and the neighbour, a hunter, rifle in hand,
passes the cottage

glimpsing the vanishing moon

At night
in the open maloka,
cicadas and frogs
in the surrounding forest

Don Rosendo and Doña Luzmilla
take turns singing icaro

I am a bit bored
staring at the roof and rafters
seeing right through it
looking down at my body—
the night sky

I had a splinter deep in my finger
refusing to be removed

after months of traveling
it surfaced
leaving a tiny hole

now the only thing rattling
is the house in the gale

I climb up to the attic
retrieving a suitcase
of old notebooks

it stands there
among the rubble
covered in dust

the first notebook I open:

"I don't know"

My body screams
and whimpers
like a newborn baby
and I care for it

how did I get this old
feeling
younger and younger?

Living on overtime
is out of fashion

skin hanging loose
hair thinning
wearing out,

resisting it
can be hard work,
yet there is no effort

I live with it,
sometimes notice
what touched ground,
letting it work
as it will

like faint tracks
in wet leaves

the white rump
of a roe deer
bounding
out of sight

as night falls
geese settling,
oinking and gabbling
in the field

then falling silent

through the alders
by the shore
faint lights
from the village
reflecting on the water

At sixty-seven
I stop trying to understand
how to live in this body

no proud fanfares
no alarm clocks

only a quiet
sometimes irritated
gratitude
getting out of bed
at 3:30

and seeing the lake
beyond the open fields

I stumble out the door,
tripping on daylight,

a flash of pain
from the bicycle ride
across the ice
last night

the squirrels
on the porch
flee into the maple tree

After a long evening
by the computer

stepping out on the porch
for a moment
breathing silence

a tawny owl cries klaivitt!
charging through my body

night hunter
brushing silence

In the cold spring wind
I go to fetch wood
behind my cottage

a solitary minor fluting
from the sparse forest
beyond the hill

the last snow
now melting

I used to hate winter
now I'm going to miss it

perhaps I landed
or
something stopped
eating me

in the northern field
two white-tailed eagles
at the butchered ewe

ravens soaring

Today the forest
of pine and spruce
leans and bends

as I pass a clearing
and sit on a rotten stump

in the sideways rain
my instinct says:
go home,

a piece of grit
in my rubber boot,

the soup on the stove
still boiling

In the forest

I read this aloud once:

if nobody ever heard these words

or ever read them,

this would still be written

I stand among silent trees

where speech is thinning
and uncertainty remains

I am getting closer

climbing the high rock
at night
rolling backwards—

finding a grip
in the last moment

but
how much longer

taking notes
becoming music
while walking

singing inward
humming outward
and still walking

crossing granite bedrock

hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm

once heard a bear humming
past the hide we sat in
then rising on its hind legs
rubbing against a dry resinous pine

even softer
mhm mhm mhm mhm mhm

a green woodpecker close by
klee klee klee klee klee klee

—a woodpigeon
coo coo co coo-coo, coo coo co coo-coo, coo

These small poems
are more like fetching wood
than making a fire

a cold wind
through the naked trees
in the pitch black morning

I fetch an armful of wood
and sit quietly
listening to the wind

a fire in the stove
a single candle
until dawn

across the land
over the water
a single light

a lantern, a fire
on a distant ridge.
looking, listening
letting eyes adjust

we don’t have to go

At my age
pace is slowing,
life comes rushing at me

I saunter
and sit by a tall spruce

my old friends fewer now
some are leaving
others already gone

overhead
the greylag geese
finally arriving

After days of isolation
I smell slightly exotic

cleansing in
the blue hour,
words and melodies

showering in the
river of the sky
the Milky Way,
no mind

Under the night sky
I listen,
Aurora Borealis
and stars

then the bounce
of a thought:

The Sámi take off their hats

Listening intently to poets
is like reading love letters

or receiving gifts
from an unknown lover:

“I will take from you
everything you give me”

Sometimes I need
to remind myself:

no more inner monastery
for a few hours—

to knock
on the door
before stepping out

not to scare the birds
and squirrels
at the feeding table

In stormy weather
this little house of mine
on stilts
rattles

sometimes I imagine
anchoring it with wires
so it doesn't lift
into the sky

As I try chanting
the brittle antiphon
aer enim volat

while making coffee in the morning
the remaining butter jumps

from its jar
onto the old rug

laughing, I pick it up
and pull out
dirt and dust

Nights are wild
alive with stray dogs
running through my head
barking in my waking body

I try to call them,
feed them
words

instead I take them out
for a slow walk
under the Big Dipper

in the dark
they keep baying
at the stars

So you think
you’ve seen it all?

You haven’t seen me
dancing under the broken paper star
after a day of computer work

then suddenly remembering
a few lines of Tractatus
and spinning on
in darkness

my writing is like
crows playing with sticks
pecking at the full stops
and eating question marks alive

crows on the fenceposts
by the pasture
watching
as I pass again

my small mouth harp
twanging and whirring
heading to the forest

I sometimes
sleep like a fish
almost hovering
in my bed

making discreet sounds
like a herring—

once mistaken
for a submarine

a faint star
then suddenly
a bright satellite

cranes calling
from afar
and geese gabbling
beyond the fields

the sky
pulling in
echoes

standing still
twilight moves
into darkness

Arriving at the dock
pausing a while
before igniting the ferry diesel
this calm mid-May morning

a barn swallow
gliding and sweeping
twittering and chattering
landing on the high ferry lantern

touching down
from southern Africa

Morning light
asks what balance
can give

I have heard hundreds
of teachings

letting language pass
through the poem
like wind

dark–
dong, dong, dong

almost gone–
ting, ting, ting

Someone says
I will walk in your footsteps

I respond
wouldn’t recommend

and consider
timing

about hands and minds
that learn late
what they were for

and good maps
never appearing

Once there was
a very small boy

a baby
in my mother’s arms,
reaching for the breast

later, following
in my father’s footsteps,
I set out

and so I came
to a great forest
where no one lived

then the money ran out

searching under
the sky
I went astray

years later
I returned
my father still alive

when he died
he left me

more than enough

I tried to hold it,
but it did not stay

after that,
my hands closed

again
I went to the forest

I came to a gate
in a mountain
with a sign:

Welcome

but I did not reach
the handle

it opened
from within—

a glinting cascade

Picking up a Pygmy pipistrelle
from the floor
under the roof beams

as if carrying a lit candle
through an open space

cupping the flame
with both hands
shielding its flicker

then releasing it under the stars