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Unpublished Material, ©2011 Cali Digre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

31= amount of time I was stuck doing nothing

In a huge change of pace from my poems from the last week or so, here is a humorous poem from a circumstance that happened to me today. I was taking a shower in my dorm room and when I tried to leave I found myself locked in, since you lock the shower from the outside. I find this stupid, and I was there for about a half an hour pacing and trying to get out. However, I counted wall tiles in several different ways and got to 486 full ones in our bathroom! So... that's something I didn't know before.

Moral: when you're bored, you think about things that you'd probably never think of.

boring things sure get fun
when your pacing is a pastime.
you can count tiles in arrays,
or individually. oh, sublime!
i wonder why we capitalize one
person, but not the others. days
are counted from the morning right?
was one person discriminating against night?
oh well, this what i did for a half hour
when i was locked in my goddamn shower.

30

I've noticed that the days are becoming shorter fairly rapidly here. Granted, the sun is still out at 10:30, it used to not really go completely down. Midnight here resembled about 9 pm back home. This poem doesn't have a moral.

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.

29

Flowers in front of Oslo Domkirke


My friends and I went back downtown this evening to take in more of the events, especially because it was difficult to do so last night when we were one of 150,000 people marching in Oslo. As we walked along Karl Johan and side streets, and by the block were the bomb went off, we noted the number of roses there were in front of Parliament, the Imperial Palace, churches, fences, even intersections. They were scattered but dense gardens. I've noted that people tend to grieve really intensely, get it out of the way, and move on, sometimes back into violent, insensitive lives, but when they grieve again, they'll be planting roses.

Moral: some things are forgotten over time, but they will happen in patterns.


flowers, you grow as
a million wishes
on the streets, sidewalk,
on our hearts, perhaps.
for hope, nutritious.

i see us relapse,
forget in distant talk,
but the mind still has
tendencies. you’ll bloom
in our wake of gloom.

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