It's New Year's Eve 2023 – 2024,

and I'm downstairs

keeping the fire in the wood stove burning

and the cold at bay in this winter land,

flipping through your old CD:s,

most of which I have copied for you,

at the beginning of our relationship;

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen,

and amongst them I find some archival CD:s

with photographs from long before we met

You are slightly ill with a cold,

withdrawn today upstairs,

to a room we call ”the studio”,

where we hide when we're not well

and need peace and quiet,

where you sit by a table today,

piecing a complicated jigsaw puzzle together,

your concentration and focus hovering

Going from picture to picture

I see you show jumping horses,

breeding trotters

and working in stables

...and I who believed your life began

when I showed up...

I see you in the maternity ward,

your son and later your daughter,

many years ago;

a sleek husband

whom you met studying sociology

...and I who thought your life began

when I appeared on the farm...

I see you climbing the mountains

of Lapland as a teenager,

with your Mom and uncle Bruno,

long before I did those things

and I see you and your husband

rebuilding a bus- and truck garage

into a stable

when you and he moved here,

to the farm,

at the beginning of time

and I realize

that I've just arrived,

a measly thirteen years ago,

to the lastest version of you,

until recently fooled by my own assumption

that your life began

when I had the decency to show up...

when in fact it was my life that started...