HOW THE WINTERS ONCE WERE
That cold green streak
that was morning
had nothing in common
with us.
And the proud plumes of chimney smoke
rose straight up.
To some god who liked
such vertical movements.
And the scrunching underfoot!
Oh that indescribable scrunching:
no one could approach unheard
that was for sure.
And the suspicion that life
perhaps really was meaningless
and not just in Schopenhauer
and the other daring old guys.
But here too
under the sky’s white plumes of smoke.
In the early 1970s I lived in northern Sweden, Åsele to be precise. There for the first time, at temperatures of up to -35°C, I discovered that snow really can scrunch, and that smoke does rise straight up in plumes. (And that a bottle of beer, if placed on the outside balcony to cool, will explode at -18°C.
ReplyDeletePS. I meant DOWN to -35°C.
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