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Thomas Rist
The following poems present aspects of Finland, where I lived between 1999 and 2001 and to which I am connected through marriage. Some of the poems use Finnish words: järkäle, järvi, löyly – roughly, ‘boulder’, ‘lake’ and ‘sauna-steam’. I have written poetry for many years, publishing occasionally.
Poems
A FIR
Stand where the fir's root
Like an old man's hand
Gathers the ground.
Look at the bark
That looks like its been punched
By a thousand fists
Before your eyes.
And now look up.
This is a tree,
Each inch is years of struggle.
Imagine a forest.
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JÄRKÄLE
On this boulder dumped
In the great retreat
Of ice; this boulder left
By the forest-clearing farmer
With shovel and pickaxe
Or tractor and dynamite;
This outcrop standing
Through sunlight and snowlight
Perhaps to the end
Of the wind's teeth
Place carefully your hand.
History's rough
Contours run clear
Considered to the touch.
Your fingers are roots
To the ground of your being.
Here in this clearing
Feel yourself earthed.
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JÄRVI
The lake's rim on which
The clouds move
The sunlight moves
Shows barely a twitch.
Aurora borealis
In the long winter
Flares in its centre
And the late fall is
Every colour
On the rim of the rim.
Then let the eye swim
Here in the fuller
Light of reflection.
See how the lie
Of the lake's eye
Outstares inspection.
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SAUNA
Made of wood, burning wood, set
In a misty wood's midst,
A sauna is not just a wash
It's a parable.
Step
From an oozing sweat,
Heat closing like a fist,
With blood or friend,
To the lakeside's lush
Lake-laden wind.
Return
To the hiss and burn
Of fire and coal,
The regular travel
Of the löyly-spoon.
In the pillaring woods
Exit again
As sunlight follows sun
Or follows rain.
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NOVEMBER
Night's a giant of a brute,
An ugly Goliath
Strutting his road on the ranked and ragged fronts
Of dark and light
No-one to stop him.
Me, I'm Israelite, shivering
At another drawn,
Protracted dawn,
Knowing we're losing and bleary-eyed
From too much staring,
Dreaming of davids who frankly
This time of year
Seem darkly unlikely.
Anyone mutter though
About outmoded methods,
Personifications of nature,
All too inhuman,
There's a stone in my brother's slingshot
Big as my fist;
I'll teach you the mean of embattled
And darkness damn you!
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SKATERS
Floodlights in the winter-black
Evening light the flooded ground
Of the old athletics track
Where the skaters make their round.
Work is over now, they drift
Half-reflecting on the ice,
What they take they think a gift,
I, unworldly exercise.
Snow is falling. Snow and time.
Ice and circling forms seem one.
As in some high-octane mime
They pace as they might have done
Centuries and worlds ago,
Under moonlight, when the freeze
Drove men skating through the snow
As sure-footedly as these.
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WAKING IN MARCH
To wake to light is no great thing
But each day now in brighter grey
I wake before the alarm's ring,
I live before the working day.
It's not so long since when I'd rise
Three hours before the watery sun,
The lamp's pale yellow hurt my eyes,
I rose like an automaton.
Through my window I could see
Only the lamps where lives unfurled,
The wandering world a refugee,
The universe an underworld.
Beneath the blind I watch growing
A chink of light, promethean spark;
To wake to light is no great thing
Until you've woken to the dark.
(Tampere, March 3rd)
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