Nathan AM Almeida

[30 August 2019]

Today’s poem is a collaboration with my dear friend, the Norwegian poet Orkidèdatter. From her first poem I read till now, I have been consistently captivated by her words and her art. She is not only a talented writer and a gifted artist but also has a beautiful and tender soul. I greatly admire her powerful ability to see and capture the human spirit in its complexity and dark beauty. It was a great honour and privilege to work with her on this piece. I have also attached an art piece she created specifically for this at the end of this poem. Please visit her page – I hope you enjoy her work as much as I have.

—

Let us go, then, back:
to summer,
where long looks languid lie in
the 8:34 sunset breeze necks stretched back to catch a corner of
the sky
hearts on fire
the silent retreats
(every time our eyes meet, the long looks of
diamond and pearl and saffron
and jade surrender themselves and sink
into an ocean of tendernesses):
A seed, a little piece of something more –
a heaven, a haven, a refuge for restless
thoughts that
don`t let the memory fade though the
night-time disappears like
last drops of an angel’s tears shaken from
the end of a juniper bough,
the spark of a new dawn, a raid on the
inarticulate, a salve
for the murmurings of a broken heart.
Let us, then, go back,
tilbake til den endelige sangen,
siste dansen
til jorden, svidd, i ild fra en gnist innenfra
til brenningen, kloringen, krypingen
(lost, not forgotten, a fleeting emotion, a
ghost, hunting
a spirit of unconsecrated yearning railing
against
the knowing and the unknowing and the
wall between your cell
and mine).
Let us go back to the rose petal
black
frozen
falling
from the spaces between lion and
the dove,
a touch of sorrow, an open wound
undressed, a starless night, a cloud
on the face of the sapphire moonlight –
a path, a melody, the strange sadness
that runs slowly through your veins
every August 24th
(congealing memory and condensing solace
into the
back alley cornerstone of an age that
never
was ours to begin with),
men, husk meg som pusten som blåste ut
lyset og tente de mørkeste tankene dine
med et kyss fra en fallende vinter rose.

—