For the Jangfeldts
In order that cadmium delete azure,
as bold as a buzzard the wind ranges,
apportioning colour to clouds – a wizened
wartime siege ration.
Every one of us in this situation
configures the comical debacle
of the despicable – no, pitiful! – Soviet Navy
sub stuck on the skerries in full view of all.
So, happy birthday, then! We’ll take the medicine
of bitter schnapps, it’ll put us right for a minute,
for round about us is the heavenly kingdom:
pine-needle memory, eternal granite.
The wrinkled shore, scored by icebergs,
has been frozen in time since the ice receded,
growing its even carpet of moss, like stubble
sprouting on the cheeks of a dead man.
24 May 1997, Stockholm