Kit Kelen

from “at Ålvik”

the weather has come

after only a season

the weather is back

there’s a mood now

I think it’s the weather

the day has lost an hour and more

hours vanish if you think of them

here’s the whole blond town

procession with wheelchair too

out for the weather and with it and in

the man with the pipe is raking his leaves

he’s a little factory – wind has his whiff away

one window open and the weather’s in

can’t chase it out like summer’s fly

of course the weather’s how we’re here

light a lamp and wait for snow

turf over our heads and huddled with oven

we dreamt everything up for the weather

crawl under the covers – it’s gone

and over the weather

all up above

there are the stars for everlasting

there’s the deep round blue

every bird here sings of the weather

what else is there to say?

The most recent of Kit Kelen’s dozen English language poetry books is Scavengers Season, published by Puncher and Wattman in 2014. “Day thirty-five: Under the weather” is a draft from a series of poems for a planned volume, The Forest is the Poor Man’s Coat, composed during residencies at Kunstnahuset Messen, in Norway, in 2014 and 2015.