Face, Core Ice, Goldberg, Cremation
I must rest my face
in the wind,
let the snow whirl around nose and cheekbones,
over eyebrows and in front of curl & lash;
clench my jaw
and listen for the deep bell-peal
from the vast cathedrals of core ice
down in Sågdjupträsket Lake,
and the lead reindeer’s bell
at ear-height of the shy forests of Norrbotten
I must rest my anger
and let it be softened in the Goldberg Variations
with Glenn Gould, Mia Chung, David Fray, Alexandre
Tharaud, Lars Vogt, Andrei Gavrilov, András Schiff,
Murray Perahia, Igor Levit, Julia Cload
Yes, I must lie down on the yoga mat
in my studio on the second floor
in a house on the borderlands of the northern wilderness,
where the brown bear lies in its den,
where the Finn wolf passes by,
where the peregrine falcon cries high above
in the thermal of the opposite season,
in a place in existence
that through an unlikely grace has been granted me
for the final decades of a man’s age,
and rest the face
in a mood I associate with Kuan Yin
and Avalokiteshvara;
names for the Bodhisattva of Compassion;
rest the angry splendor of my face
in verse & verity
in these star-clusters,
these home regions in the light
– and in new-old names from the ages;
Annika, from whom I rented a maid’s room in 1967,
& Katarina, whom I asked to dance in 1966 –
who span their bridge-arches of glass & silver
between youth-years long since wrecked
in daylight & welfare state,
and today’s living light, climbing dazzling
in mountain regions where pyres are being prepared
Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin
Written on 2025-12-23 at 17:12
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