AA: It’s such a process of turning the ship around. I have meditated for about 10 years now. And sometimes people will say: ‘I can’t meditate’, ‘my mind is too unruly’. Or: ‘I can’t write poems’; ‘I don’t get it’ and ‘I don’t get poetry’. And in both cases, I’m like: ‘you’re not meant to have a mind that’s tame. You’re not meant to get it.’ Right? But that’s not a satisfying thing to hear for some people.
I’m wondering if you’d like to read another poem.
AP: Okay …
‘Black and white photo’ used to have another title, which was: ‘Meteorology has always been an inexact science’.
It’s getting late here in the suburb that reminds one of light and blindness at the same time; the trees are quiet and fragile in the snowed-in quadrangle, and that house: whose purpose I don’t know. The best thing about snow is that it turns your life into a black and white photograph; as if what is happening now is already memory and you are looking at it safely from a distance; I have never eaten reindeer rissoles before and am experiencing other things for the first time; (crowds all around and hustle and bustle of the mensa, arrogant man opposite us with newspaper.) And thinking about it afterwards now in the black-and-white-photo-ness of less than forty-five minutes ago; my stomach hurts and I’m able to realise it’s not up to you and there is plenty of information on which to decide to leave. I can now make decisions which are right and which I don’t necessarily like. Perhaps this will be remembered as one of the advantages I had in being so much older than you. And I will miss very much the blond wood of the desks, the green overhead lamps the quietness around, and in, my mind; I would mention your temples, your sweat and double teeth moons on my shoulder skin but I’m savvy now to sentimentality. It’s possible that, in the next days, we will eat with the French and take a sauna with the skinny, funny boy. With less time remaining I will think differently about everything, listen and feel like a guest and tourist again. Children on sleds Those fat black birds with the blue mark Big, white, fish-pudding sausage Snus tucked in between teeth and lips Numerous cheese slicers in one drawer Limewire icons, wide light switches Fur-lined Converse laced around hems of jeans Smoke-free clubs, willow-footed dancers Sitting two persons to one big chair, hands gritty with salt Sparks flying between sled-blades, rocks and snow Frozen waffles, icelandic chocolate Weak tea from the plastic jug Young women who look like cherubs Young men who look like pixies Soldiers taut in front of the palace Black sludge piled at the side of the road Candles burning outside the Bunnpris Eating folded cake with sweet mock-cream and falling on wrists and arse and knees. (When it’s black outside early whole walls can turn into mirrors and leave you sitting with only yourself to look at.) Between our two cities there are only two letters in common and it’s not enough what, with all those stark kilometres all those degrees of celsius; there’s only room at the end for street lights to come on. I will make my way home without slipping in the dark.
