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(original & five reworked versions)

In Long Voids; Intermittences

I

So has this barren autumn too
presented its final Musca domestica at Noret,
beneath the roofbeam and the constellations of the sky,
in the intermittent humming of its delicate peace
in late September’s study
up here on the second floor,
a series of rising spirals
from indeterminate places in the room;
unfailingly conjuring the archetype
of the fly’s lifelong acquaintance,
heard but not at once seen
in the room’s dusky corners, slipping about
in a solitary, pleasant murmur,
executed piece by piece in sparse intervals
through the long silence of evening
within the quietly daily life;
a presence of insignificant kind,
which with autumn and age gains growing weight
and a spiritual spaciousness one could hardly have foreseen
in the ever-familiar, the unremarked presence
in all that has transpired,
the backdrop to day and moment, feast and weekday,
sacred and worldly,
which in autumn’s darkness, in frost’s forecourts,
comes to describe the life we have lived, the death we have died,
the age in which we have aged, the day that is today;
a sensual late phase
in which the one now so magically self-evident buzzing
back there behind the curtain, sparse, in long voids,
dares to utter the final buzz-realist wordlessnesses
behind summer’s fleeing back
over marsh and timber roads
before the white winter’s blasting plain speech
over Norrbotten’s crouching houses
beneath the ice-cold zodiac’s clusters
of shrill starry nights of wild suspensions of breath.

II

This lean autumn
unfolds its last Musca domestica
beneath rafters, beneath the constellations –
a fragile spiral of sound
rising from nowhere in the room,
heard but unseen,
a minor murmur threading
the long hush of evening.
So small a presence,
yet with age it grows immense:
a spirit-space no one foretold,
woven through the unnoticed fabric
of days and hours, feast and ordinary time,
shadow and frost-gate.
The buzz becomes testimony –
to the life we have lived,
the death already rehearsed,
the day that is this day.
Now, behind the curtain,
it utters its last wordless realism,
as summer withdraws over swamps and timber roads,
yielding to the white winter’s searing plain-speech
across Norrbotten’s crouching houses,
beneath the frozen zodiac’s
piercing, breathless star-nights.

III

Autumn arrives stripped to the bone,
offering its last emissary –
the housefly beneath the rafters,
threading starlight into spirals of sound,
a cipher rising from the hidden corners of the room.
It hovers like a forgotten rune,
heard before seen,
a shadow-messenger tracing
the silence of the hours,
revealing how the smallest presence
can grow vast with age,
becoming a chamber of spirit
inside the ordinary day.
Its murmuring recalls
the lives we have lived,
the deaths rehearsed in secret,
the day that insists on being today.
Behind the curtain it whispers
its final glossolalia,
while summer’s back dissolves
into marshland and timber-roads,
and winter sharpens its white tongue
against the crouching houses of Norrbotten,
under the zodiac’s frozen choir
of starry, breathless nights.

IV

Autumn stripped.
A final fly –
Musca domestica
spiraling sound into rafters,
into constellations.
Unseen,
a hush murmuring itself alive,
corners breathing,
intervals breaking.
Insignificance swelling –
age, frost-gates,
spirit chambers opening
where no one foresaw.
We lived.
We died.
This day burns.
Behind the curtain –
last wordlessness,
buzzing glossolalia,
summer fleeing
through swamp, timber,
into the white tongue of winter.
Norrbotten crouches,
the zodiac shatters
into nights of breathless stars.

V

Buzz, and silence.
Buzz, and silence.
The last fly sings beneath the rafters,
beneath the constellations.
Spiral of sound, spiral of breath,
rising, vanishing, rising.
Unseen corners mutter.
Intervals fracture.
Evening listens.
Small thing, vast thing,
spirit hidden in the ordinary.
We lived. We died.
We live. We die.
Behind the curtain—
the last wordless words,
buzzing like prophecy,
buzzing like memory.
Summer flees. Summer flees.
Through marsh. Through timber.
Winter sharpens its tongue.
Winter sharpens its tongue.
Norrbotten bends low.
The zodiac burns cold.
Star upon star, breath held,
night upon night,
night upon night.

VI

Lo, this barren autumn bringeth forth
its final herald –
the housefly beneath the rafters,
beneath the signs of heaven.
It ascendeth in spirals unseen,
its hum a frail covenant of silence,
heard ere it is beheld,
a murmur weaving through the hours.
Small is its presence,
yet mighty in the ripening of age;
for spirit is given unto the least,
and spaciousness unto the overlooked.
Thus is remembered the life we have lived,
the death rehearsed,
the day that is this very day.
And behold –
behind the curtain it uttereth
its last glossolalia,
its last speech beyond speech,
while summer turneth her back
unto marsh and timber road,
and winter sharpeneth his tongue
to smite the crouching houses of Norrbotten,
beneath the cold host of the zodiac,
beneath the fierce stars that keep watch
in nights without breath.

Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin