keskiviikko 10. elokuuta 2011

The Stones of Sulitelma

Slowly we go over stones
torn apart from rocks
by a beast who's not here anymore ;
torn apart by nails
that have a strength
to crush the mountains
and level the hills.
They are here :
the grey and the red stones
and the yellow ones,
those being wet and those being dry,
stepping stones, and stones being sharp.

But where is she?
She's not dead, I know that
from her frozen breath
touching softly my face,
from her blood, icy and bright
that is bleeding in streams
pouring down the steep slopes
filled with stones like knives,
from her arms
bridges of snow
stretching far over canyons of death.
You can't cross them,
or you'll fall down
and die.

She's wounded, she's hiding
behind the rocks
behind the dunes of sand.
She's a goddess, she's old and dying.
She's naked, dirty and damp,
she's grey in the tone of concrete.
She's a wall rising high
above your head.

And she's dreaming awake.
She's having a dream :
she's dreaming a reality
that's melting
away.

Sulitelma is a glacier on the border mountains of Sweden and Norway, at the height of 2000 metres. With the global warming, it is melting down rapidly. I made a one-week trek around Sulitelma in August 2007, together with my friends Pekka Hippi and Jaakko Isojunno.

This poem is an English version (NOT a translation) of my earlier poem Sulitelma. I

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