It's Still Life

Wind’s Own Language

I hated blackberries as a child—
snakes in the grass,
thorns whispering your blood back to you,
wasps guarding sweetness like secrets.

Grandmother’s in the kitchen, stirring blackberries in a copper pot. Special wooden spoon, stained a deep bruised purple. Clockwise to stir in wishes; stirring berries into jam. Into dye. Wine.

Now I eat
half of what I pick.
The rest I lay like offerings
on a plate of ymer, smoked fish,
and extremely old cheese
that bites back.

My knee still sings
the hymn of last week’s tumble —
I’m a slow pilgrim, still 8,000 steps,
aspirin’s white kindness
tucked under my tongue.

He takes my arm at night now. When we walk.

In the forest,
I gathered the names
the old healers once carried
on their breath:

Mugwort.
St. John’s Wort.
Red-dead nettle.
Oat root.
Red clover.
Yarrow curled like a fist,
and wild chicory staring at the sky
as if waiting for a god
it once fed.

Even sweet violet
sings in Victorian corsets —
tight-laced with
perfumed obedience.

I stood in barley,
ankle-deep in gold,
listening to the wind
teach the trees new syllables.

Three crows took flight
from the sermon.
One stayed.

We watched each other.
Quietly.
His eye blinked.
Mine didn’t.

At Hammershus, I left
a breath for the bones.
Dark clouds
rolled in with their intention.

The Baltic Sea is rough with memory.

The stones here
are not ruins — nor runes,
they are lungs
that chose not to exhale.

And the wind?
It would carry you,
if you dared to loosen
your name.

We start south again tomorrow.