layered light, as if behind
layers in a fresco the snow
on the mountains, its shapes

so like bromine dissolved
hidden as always on sleeptrips
a bit of sun breaks through as

if from the earthside, eggs
crack and quick as an eddy
of chaffinches over the hedge

the flight of thoughts from my
body; their aliveness, beaks,
wings, and the closeness

of the others’ welcome as soon
as we alight on a birch and the
reason for our lives is revealed:

when the birches came to Lakselv
and founded the town they brought
along tufts of grass for a few sheep

so others than the leaves
could listen to the rustling
of the leaves and see how they

transform sunlight almost
as if to clear green water;
since then the sheep have sometimes

taken the birches along to the beach
a riddle for the reindeer at the
shoreline grazing

among half-furred stones, the last
bit of morning mist wrapped around
their greyish bodies, otherwise just

windless ice-turquoise sky
and the flower of an eider duck
on frost-stricken water

morning June twentieth