the mystic sun

Jörn does not speak often about the strangeness of the bond between us. Almost as if he assumes it is something that is understood

 but I believe his opera is his way to express this

He is too rational a person to speak about these things but sometimes I wish he would. Life is so fleeting and moments go by in a blink. Some moments you never wish for again

but others are gone before they ever got to happen and then it is too late

I write from my phone from the gallery alcove above that faces diagonally to the wide, open, living-room, space below

But I face the window and watch the leaves fall with my headphones on to tune out the voices of conversation that trickle up from downstairs —between Lisa, Andreas and Jörn that I know I would likely not understand but I am sure the tones would tell me enough

So, again, I watch him from afar, it seems, absorbed in his world .... like an artist’s task, penning scenes of his life in my dictionary; occupied with the theater of my muse

Josef and Elsa have gone driving locally exploring the autumn foliage on an audio tour they discovered on some app. The Adirondacks are beautiful now; like a travel postcard; everything brilliantly yellow ochre and alizarin crimson



but I think of this morning.....

*****************************************

“I had to come back for you,” he says

only he says this to me in sleep or maybe it is half sleep

an early light seeps into the room with us. I am turned to him in sleep; pulled inside his warmth within the circle of long limbs and I find I cannot move, caught in his fingers that hold my skull, his fingers tangled in my hair. He unconsciously grips and then releases, creating a symphony within my head of his touch and by how he breaths I know he is not awake

I don’t know if he is aware of what he says but he says in a deep, soft voice,
“I was to late that time so .... I knew I had to follow you....”

if his words did not make sense to the dream I just awoke from I would not find the relevance

because I dreamed again of the little hut and the smeden .... the blood and the hides and watching the firelight die beneath the forge .... and....  he held my head this way.... the same way he does now

when I left him ..... when she died in his arms

I dreamed again

all the blood everywhere, all over his white hides .....how he never let go, and how he stayed that way long after going cold ....and remember how hard it was to go and to leave the sight of him, to long to be near him that lingered


You see, this dream —these dreams of the pirate, only ever seem to surface while in extreme duress of danger or emotion —when something in the present life is in deep turmoil

or— just triggered when we first met when it seemed like every night we had the dreams

  ....like some voice that recalls, it surfaces when it seems all hope is lost

“Follow me from where?” I ask him holding back a sudden sob

absently he caresses my hair, his fingers comb through, he says softly with heavy regret,

“I was too late....”

And the weight of remorse feels nearly oppressive; like a burden


And it reminds me more of other things.... details from somewhere.... like always watching for the sun, searching

and there just beyond .....the hut apart from the other houses with memories of the thought of his scent on the hides when he was away ....the hut beyond; a small shrublike grove that faced the sea....

But he was too late

he should not have gone .... I know from dreams.... because  of the fear for the maimed warrior lord

.... this dream we had tonight

that is when he said he would “be back before the midnight sun”

But he should not have gone

“I had to follow you....” Jörn says this again and breaths slowly, “....min lilla duva.... you were the angel that appeared like a dove.... I couldn’t let you go again.... why did you go?”

I try to look at him. Try to move my head. But I am caught in his grip; his fingers tangled close to the scalp and holding my skull caught and cupped in his hand

what does he mean?

“I could not let you go back to this place alone but —what was the chance I’d ever .....”

“What?” I ask confused

“What?” he asks in reply but still grips me

“Ever —what?”

“....find you.....!”


“....Find me?” I ask and now try to angle or move my body to turn to see his face but he is much stronger and keeps his hold on me as I struggle to free

which now is what seems to wake him and he releases his grip of my skull, his hands absently move down my body, as he sighs so deeply that it vibrates warmly as he pulls me to him,

Only I realize he’s still between dream because now he says,

“....I told you I’d be back before....”

but then now he wakes up

he takes another deep breath but it is more ..... like someone stabbed; like a kind of grunt and his arms go tight around me like a vise,

“.... the midnight sun.”