F O T O, poems 41-50

Lapporten

[Image source: http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Sweden/Norrland/Lappland/Abisko/photo906406.htm]

40.  (Cold water ― Torneträsk)

Sea ― big enough ― no access though,

I mean for salt, and cruise ships.

Sweet scent of this: birch, bog myrtle...

Sea fed by snow-melt. Hundred cold taps.

41.  (Flinging water)

Oh no. Not now your hands have found the water.

I know you’re a damned dangerous woman.

“Our matrons were lovely. They had to be, or they’d have been hounded out.”

And even so, you shook talc in matron’s bun.

43. (Shirt off by the fall)

Unmuted, my skin rubs up against the world:

coarse prickles of treeish debris;

swirls in the air; warm, flat butt of stone;

splish ― two, three drops crawl on my belly.

44. (Kicking water)

I looked at the dreamy arc and wished, somehow,

it would hang up there but it can't. From the moment

it flares up huge it is failing and kick as I may

it is falling into the gliding beck, no comment.

45. (Mad picture of Laura eating pancake)

Kerstin fluffed up a broad bowl of cream

and they were ready, they opened the servery.

We slogged up the hill with bikes. On time

we delivered our savagery.

46. (Laura dancing, Lapporten behind)

You create round a space in the hills and

fill it forever with something that isn't there.

My ever, at least. Something I’ll gaze at, old

and back, oh what is it? But you signed the air. 

47. (Hands to the sky)

Thus the plants lift their leaves, but we can't

snack from the sky. All the same, we're quicker.

Your arms make a yearning gesture, your palms

open. You discover America.

48. (Yelling in the hills)

T I L L ! Even the greatest bomb dies into silence…

Y O U ! How briskly she folds down the blankets on uproar

F I N D ! and back slips peace; but crush it baby

Y O U R !! and sing out – show we’ve more.

49. (Rented bikes)

Weird brakes ― you back-pedalled whinnying;

& angel handlebars, I slewed all

over the road groping for gears at knee-level. One plus-point:

springing, across the blue birchscape, the radiant bells.

50. (Writing in turiststation, rainstorm outside)

As if I hadn’t seen, dull as a stone

or that bench outside the window…

Decapitated mountain, grey fizzbomb.

Tea, trying to write a card. Glad to be indoors.

*

Backstory: All poems located on the same mostly sunny day at Abisko in the far north of Sweden. The U-shaped valley "Lapporten" (46 and image), to the east of Abisko,  is one of Sweden's most recognizable skylines.