With My Wings Hanging
I have a goodnight sky,
dark and full of stars,
that appears for a moment on the ceiling
when I switch off the reading lamp in Norrbotten
and surrender myself
…but when the tenor Andrea Bocelli performs Nessun Dorma
from Turandot by Giacomo Puccini,
in the enormous San Siro Stadium in Milan,
at the opening of the 2026 Winter Olympics,
– as if the essence of human identity were gathered
into a solemn flight
in a vast spacecraft
in a novel by Arthur C. Clarke –
I experience myself standing just outside the circle of Homo sapiens,
on a mountaintop with my wings hanging
and my eyes in tears,
while humanity, in its intent to depart, gathers around the light,
like the refugees of Aniara around the Mima,
in a growling sphere
whose circumference is lost in the darkness,
as my right of domicile in this species erodes
And when I listen to the 99-year-old shaman
David Attenborough’s seven-hour lecture
The Edge of Reality,
at the urging of the 79-year-old Dandyreed noaidi
Sune Karlsson,
I stand within an All that never stretches, never runs dry,
always surpasses all imagination,
and even God may exist,
yes, may exist,
but in no way corresponding to anyone’s thought,
and I have my goodnight sky,
dark and full of stars,
that stands on the ceiling in Niemisel for a moment
at the end of life
when I switch off the reading lamp
and surrender myself
in full-body gravity and rest
Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin
Written on 2026-02-07 at 10:14
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