Jane Røken

Late summer on the road

say yes

this is the unspoken calling,

an effort of the imagination

so violently green:

the painted caravan

at the back of the grove

is sliding on shifting shale,

hot hollows

shady rests

blankets full of strange delights

the colour of tyrean gold

be awake

be my astrolabe

my map o’ the universe

magnetic miracle

my windhover,

be my well-tried comfort

be mine

stay alive

the scarecrow in the field

is following

the long-distance birds

that cross the sky at dawn,

looking for colours

beyond the map,

secret colours

no one has yet named

regard the world kindly

outside our small safe space flies mystery,

lean transparent insects,

silver lairs of tunnel spiders

under nets of dappled light,

fairy lanterns, fairy rings

the birch, the rowan, the mountain ash

ivy-leaved toadflax

skeletal leaves

lost villages

keep moving

tough-spirited rain

is plaiting my hair,

rising winds add

strange designs and curlicues,

the indeterminate inflection

of our route

and the luminous mill wheel

always ahead

try to be joyful

the season is changing

with advancing walls

of echoes,

we see the tail of summer

waving head-high

in wild grasses and grain,

and like autumn weeds

grown tall and tired,

we lie down

together

Jane Røken lives in Denmark, on the interface between hedgerows and barley fields. She is fond of old tractors, garden sheds, scarecrows and other stuff that, in the due course of time, will ripen into something else. Her writings have been published in many different places, mostly online.