New Twist

So I've been sick this past weekend, which is why I didn't get a poem up yesterday... supposedly. But anyways my last poetry assignment in my class was to write a section poem, which I decided to do on the nature of Norway. You will see that these poems are familiar: these were part of my summer project, and I reinterpreted them to create new poems. This was actually really interesting. It was fun to see things redrawn this way. Anyways, yup. I've included the original poem and then the redraw.


7/3

Water blends too well with things,
As if it were all on single strings.
A certain place finds my eyes,
Not to be described as one noun.
They clouds are gray, this place like ashes.

And so I watch it, and I
Am positive that this is the sky.
But a little boy splashes,
And then I realize
I’ve been looking down.


Water Blends Too Well with Things

In its aquamarine interpretation of trees
And people. The softness, serenity of fluid outlines,
The impertinence of detail.
Because they way one moves is often—
More important? No— more conspicuous.
Only the clouds look the same, but that may be because of their
Movement. They float under the lilies like gentle fish.
The breeze sighs among the rocks and some tumble in casually,
The pond catching its breath once they all finally sink.
My face never had so much movement.

7/8

The duck swam.

Its feet made waves
In a perforated triangle.

And the duck spoke: “I am
A master now. My choice saves
This certain grass from being eaten.

“But oh, I am so far from the highest view.
The danger I feel! Often I think a wolf will mangle
Me by my neck. But, even then, a wolf can be beaten.
By you.”



To a Duck:

Why are you so fragile? Your shivers ripple through
Your glass skeleton. I expect you to shatter, your hollow bones
Whistling like a bent oboe among the reeds.
You assert yourself as if you were an unorthodox question,
Incredible shame for an innocent inquisition,
Grinding out of an indecisive mouth.
I can imagine many more ways for you to die
Than for you to live,
Though I suppose if you weren’t so brittle,
I wouldn’t find you so beautiful.

7/22

rolling quiet
just static of
shock a scream
couldnt pass through
the air is too brittle

no birds
but ashes
no weeping rain
but smoke hangs
too bleak for rain or birds

7/23

Save me, trees! I cry.
You are more fortunate than I!

How you stand, foreboding
In endless array. How you stand
Forever, keeping hold of the land.
How you stand unafraid in the dark.
Never telling if you are imploding.
Never telling save your bark.

I’ve hated you for having no soul.

But you sure have this all under control.



The Forests in Hallingdal, Vestlandet, Norway

Every glass building in Regjeringsstrøket
Has more of itself on the street
Than in its iron framework.
These trees are older than the government.
Never has Oslo been so lit with flowers and prayer candles, but
Flora grows back every spring, after the forest fires, of course.
A bullet to the head can instantly kill a fifteen-year-old boy.
It takes at least twenty axe swings to fell an oak.
We make cemeteries out of people.
We make churches out of trees.


7/27

The dark could but converge.
It hung at a fixed point,
Incorrigible to urge.

How stubborn was it one
Evening. The clouds floated
On the darkest cusp, a joint
That was quickly demoted.

For the days are shorter.
And as for the sun,
I’m not sure if we can afford her.


A Month’s Aging of the Midnight Sun

There used to be an eternal day, the sun bowing to a point
Then escaping the darkness, swimming back upstream
Into the sky. I suppose it was perseverance.
But the summer aged.
The air is damp from too much movement,
From too much life doing too much too fast.
The sun limps behind the thick clouds,
Its light sallow compared to June.
She sleeps longer now, and sometimes she forgets to wake.
I have not seen her in three days.

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

35

So today ended my six weeks in Norway. It was quite sad, I must admit, but I will look forward to returning someday soon. Upon leaving, I got to thinking about who I was the last time I was there and how I could have never dreamed that I would be the person I am today. It's sort of crazy. I've been keeping my journal from the last time I was here and likewise almost don't remember being that person. I'm not saying that I've become a better person or a worse person. I'm just different. Different sense of humor, mannerisms, perspective.

Moral: When we are living, it's hard to see both where we've come from and where we're going.

I cannot say exactly when
Any return seemed rather cold.
Regarding now, could I say then
On where I’ve come from, where I’ve been?
The future could not be foretold.

So time is victim of this theft
Where gradient is quite in lack
And recollection far from deft:
What was I like when I first left,
And who will I be when I come back?


Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

33 and 34

I was in Røros this weekend and very not apt to use the internet so as to maximize my enjoyment there. Røros is hands down my favorite place in the world, and I have been waiting for three years to go back there. I had a wonderful weekend and even cried a bit on my way back (cheesy, I know, but at least I'm being upfront about it).

The first poem I wrote about the play called "Elden" that I saw there. It's about Røros' role in a war between Norway and Sweden in the early 1700's. Sweden had invaded Norway and on its way back home decided to stop in Røros and take all the copper that was there, since Røros was a big mining town until the 1970's. The inhabitants initially hid the copper, but when the Swedes threatened to burn the entire town, which is comprised almost completely of timber buildings, the inhabitants relented. Unfortunately, on their way back to Sweden, the entire Swedish army froze to death in the mountains. The entire play was about the hopelessness of war.

Moral: just because you think you need something does not mean you actually do.


7/30

Who wants it?
Who wants that stain
Seeping, spreading?
Where are we heading
When it wants us more?

But we need a bit.
We need some pain
To make us feel our worth.
We need to explain our birth.
We need our need of war.


The second poem I wrote right after leaving Røros when I was crying a little bit and watching it disappear behind the mountains. Just as I had strived to see every last bit of Røros when I was there, I saw it as much as possible.

Moral: It's okay to look back sometimes.

7/31

What little view these birches grant,
A pity that the clouds have stayed
And petrified this single plain.
This mountain bend is sure a crime.

Time reversed itself. So near.
In six minutes will you appear.

So I sit rearwards on this train.
I hate how you fade,
I hate looking back, but I can’t
Help but see you one last time.


Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

32

On Tuesday, while examining the wreckage from the bomb, my friends and I also went out to the cemetery behind St. Olavs Domkirke to visit the graves of some of Norway's most favorite artists and people. One person buried there is Henrik Wergeland, whom I have become quite fond of. My favorite poem of his was written on his deathbed when he was dying of TB, and in it he cries for spring, one of the prevailing characters in his poem, to save him. I find the opening line so beautiful:

"O springtime, springtime, save me!
No one has loved you more tenderly than I."

So... without further ado, I wrote this poem to him in response to his fear of death and fear of oblivion.

Moral: we are all immortalized, even if we never live to see it.


Mortality is not well-behaved, too
Decided on rejecting the call,
Bitter that life enslaved you.

You knew you would succumb one
Day. Your fear depraved you.

You knew you would be merely
Part of the frost, part of the fall.

Yet your springtime has saved you.
How could she ever betray someone
Who loved her so sincerely?

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

Tjue Åtte

Today the city of Oslo had a rose and candle procession through the city, and my friends and I went. So did a lot of other people. 150,000 other people to be exact. I'd never been in a crowd that big, but there was something sincerely moving about the population of Oslo marching from City Hall to Oslo Domkirke holding roses in the air. Oslo has gone out of shock and into mourning, but not reproach and anguish. People are banding together. The last quote is a now famous quote by one of the survivors of the shootings at Utøyen, and I think it fits the general opinion of the citizens very well.

We are the city! We enter,
We pulse through the streets
Like blood. Its heart beats
As we march through the center.
“Ja, vi elsker dette landet!” is implied.
No one sings it but you can hear.
Everyone to everyone is dear,
As one voiced had cried,
“If one man can create that much hate,
Imagine how much love we as a togetherness can create.”

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

26 and 27

The first poem is a poem I wrote in my journal as part of my seasonal hand-written poem exercise. I usually give trees a very bad rap in some of my poems, but I found something redeeming about them as I drove past them in the forest. They may only give an illusion of strength, but sometimes anything is good enough.

The second poem I wrote upon returning to Oslo this weekend. People are still in shock, but the city is very quiet. No students are outside, people are quiet at dinner. I don't sense despair here.


7/23

Save me, trees! I cry
You are more fortunate than I!

How you stand, foreboding
In endless array. How you stand
Forever, keeping hold of the land.
How you stand unafraid in the dark.
Never telling if you are imploding.
Never telling save your bark.

I’ve hated you for having no soul.

But you sure have this all under control.

7/24

I have seen the sky
In tears. I have seen
The clouds scream vengeance
For the loss of May.

Yet it is quiet today,
Lost the urge to cry.
Lost urge for a sentence.
Lost of all clean.

Careful how we tread,
Fragile little head.


Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre

A terrible half-way point

As you may or may not have already heard, there were twin bomb attacks in Oslo this afternoon. A bomb went off at the city center about 5 km from campus, and I actually heard it and thought it was thunder. Later in the afternoon, there was a shooting at a youth camp for the Labour Party in an island. All in all, I've heard of 18 casualties. I was almost not going to write a poem, but I decided I had to capture what I felt when I walked outside shortly after hearing. Everyone and everything was so fragile. I will also be out of the city this weekend, so I'll be posting twice on Sunday again.

rolling quiet
just static of
shock a scream
couldnt pass through
the air is too brittle

no birds
but ashes
no weeping rain
but smoke hangs
too bleak for rain or birds

Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre