| ROUNDING THIRD There might have been time
what kept the light from reaching you
to find other moorage
but you reverted home
I walk to the
Hjemkomst
in Moorhead Minnesota, have happened to turn
sixty-three, it is awned for good here, modern
Viking dragon ship
that he wrighted to sail to
Oslo
Trondheim
Faeroe
Iceland
Duluth
home to home to home, from
dream to reality to memories
he had written, would make it but not alive, get
hjemsøkt av sykdom
through building launch and trial, not
hjemmefra
only
hjem
he’s home they will chant
the pious that have watched you die
now we won’t have to take
him to a home amen
hjemkomst
a return home, an arrival there, here, Minnesota North
Dakota would have to be the
hjemland
or was it all Norway dream, the park is here
in my hometowns on a kind of moorhead with
wide lawn much green still in it a drop to
naked river wood the working Red itself, yon
bank Fargo that got me launched and tried,
sixty-three
skipet hører hjemme her
one would think, nary grandparent of mine ever
sang
ja vi elsker dette landet
or dreamed back though I enjoy the language,
notion of a Norway, the permanent
båtskur
is roofed with what one might take to be stretched
tarp but a fiberglass part of hard-made museum, a
friend of mine had gone to socalled Hawley Shipyard
a potato dugout
it may sink like an oaken chiffonier
he thought, no the
Hjemkomst
ran well when wright now
skipper
los
tried her at Duluth who would not make it alive,
the dream ship would a one-way harrow to Bergen and
Oslo with his children at oarage the summer my
Norwegian dad went
hjem
have I reverted home to die, am a man of the road
wherever you have
gone it has been to die and the
carver put a hint
of smile in dragon head
the wright was a man of family
hjemmevant
in midamerica, grew him a heritage beard yet would
not have dreamt on the
hjemkomst
to lay in Norway, retake it as one true home,
might have only wanted to go, be off the homestead
out of the roadstead awhile at home in the
turbulent seaway the tang of it, turn
hjémover
at the end to a
hjemkomst
in native potato midland but had to harry the waves
in a dream, no voyage, that went direct to memory
while out of New York the longship took a crack in
the hull, moaned on to carry that dream from home
port home would not sail home, they shipped her, to
lie in moorhead awning museum dry dock, the
Hopperstad stavkirke
her company now
no Christian would go
to the stick church in Jump City
you see at gable tip
the line of the dragon
or be
hjemlig
with
Hjemkomst
either, the blow of raw pagan sea in her oak, I
walk around the museum not into it, my legs that
worked on road and mountain have carried me
back to the homefelt smell of aging prairie autumn,
the ship
har ingen steder hjemme
and home neither here nor there is now
it might have been light
that kept the time from reaching you
and you reverted home
to find other moorage
Glossary: Hjemkomst : name of ship he : shipwright Robert Asp (1923–80) hjemsøkt av sykdom : afflicted with illness hjemmefra : (away) from home hjem : home (noun, adverb) hjemland : homeland moorhead : highest part of a moor skipet hører hjemme her : the ship belongs here ja vi elsker dette landet : yes, we love this country (Norwegian anthem, first line) båtskur : boat shed Hawley Shipyard : where ship was built in Minnesota skipper : shipmaster los : pilot hjemmevant : domesticated hjémover : homeward Hopperstad stavkirke : Hopperstad stave church, replicated next to museum Jump City : Hopperstad, Vik, Norway hjemlig : comfortable har ingen steder hjemme : is neither here or there —TOP OF PAGE— |
