Li Po Hut
The coffee is still hot
in the mug's narrow chimney;
smoking
I inaugurate Li Po Hut,
beyond the woodshed and the firewood pagoda,
bordering brown-bear forest
and peregrine-falcon mountain
It is the first of July:
warm sun, warm wind, white summer clouds
I inaugurate Li Po Hut
lying on my back, my head on a bundle of blankets,
afternoon light whispering in
through the room's only window;
tiny, high in the south wall;
the mug of black coffee
to the right of my built-in bunk,
resting on an upended cable reel,
a book about Li Po and Tu Fu
upon my stomach; my whole body relaxed
and sleepy – yet diamond-alert –
after paddling the kayak
across the dizzyingly wide mirror of Degerselet
in the sun-filled wind;
the waves pulsing like cardiovascas
beneath the little clouds; inversion-layered
Yesterday
we cleared out the old playhouse,
of all its hodgepiled artifacts,
and I swept and scrubbed it clean, then let it dry,
the door standing open toward the woodshed
and eternity
...and today I lie here in Li Po Hut,
up here in Norrbotten, letting everything be,
for everything reveals itself, insofar as it is meant to,
and the writing pad from Clas Ohlson
– or was it Biltema? –
serves the pen from Pen Store well
I lower my guard, open my scalp chakra,
and let whatever I am flow upward into the sky
as flourish and vanity;
the chimney chakra
smoking like the black coffee
in the chimney mug
I inaugurate Li Po Hut,
a little in the spirit of Gary Snyder, I admit
Li Po Hut,
from within my immediate now-being,
becomes a ship's cabin,
and the earth is the ship;
the sun its lantern,
space the sea
The calendars sing
in first-of-Julyish,
while the night – somewhere –
masked, sun-drunk, dazzled into flight
in the land of the midnight sun,
dreams its loose lucid dreams
of lovable evening girls
and dawn-grim vixen crones,
in accordance with
the circadian statutes of the day
Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin
Written on 2026-07-02 at 10:41
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