The scaup is searching for a shore
To build her nest, a lonely beach,
Or rocky cliff no fox can reach.  
Egg-gobblers and roosting mothers war.  
There is no land, just churn and spray,
The billows heave and wave-crests foam,
Nowhere for her to make a home,
If there’s a coast, it’s far away.  
From hovering and fluttering, her wings
Are weary, and her soaring droops.  
Neither scanning, nor her endless loops
Find shelter from cold blusterings.  
And soon she’ll drop, and soon she’ll drown.  
Unless she finds a landing spot.  
And there, out there, a blip, a dot.  
A floe, an island made of ice,
Too big to bob, and just as firm
As any continent, a berm
Bears, seals or penguins would think nice.  
Not great for birds, but she’s no choice.  

She lands, she rests, she lays her eggs.  
Her frigid roost has numbed her legs,
But it’s a nest, so she’ll rejoice.  
Her eggs are warm, and soon they’ll hatch.  
Hatchlings can sip from melted snow,
But grubs don’t squirm on this bare floe,
And there’s no fish around to catch.    
Icebergs are barren and they’re hard.  
But far beneath the ice and sea,
Rich bottomland, a cozy lea,
The sea-bed makes a better yard.  
Born to water, they will breathe
Water, as their mother did the air.
And though aquatic birds aren’t rare
Gilled scaups are scarce as hens that teethe.  
A separate species, her lost young
Will never know their mother soared,
Or dropped the offspring she adored.  
In ocean depths unwarmed by sun.  
In that strange element they’ll thrive,
Becoming what has never been,
A species hitherto unseen.
Unknown to her, but they’ll survive.  

She drops the eggs, and trills goodbye.  
Then, mournfully, the scaup takes wing.  
To cross what’s past accomplishing.
The coast’s too far, but she will try.

Across lands of verdure and light, water and men,
Walked a young Lowyatar, and fear she induced,
Turned clouded and opaque, the arid sky,
As she blindly and slowly walked on and on and on- by and by,

Blackened promontories rose in seas around,
To the north, the west, the east and the south,
What her dry fingers touched deprived of life itself.

Blind daughter of death; blind daughter of Tuoni,
Sister in blood of Lemminkäinen's killer, sister of Tuoen Poika.
Unloved and untouched, Lowyatar weeped and searched,
Abandoned by her death-bringing family.

From cracked and dried and distraught lips she cried,
"Ukko, O Ukko, save me from myself, I beg of thee,
With what's left of my life, my passion, my love
I know only pain I know only death, I see nothing.

O Ukko, I wander hither and thither, northward and westward
O Ukko, I wander thither and hither, southward and eastward
Searching for acceptance and vivid color and life.

O Ukko, save me from myself and my name!"

Lonely is the young girl, priestess of plague, goddess of famine,
Alone for life, her eyes blurred with salt and water,
A twitch in a corner of her mouth, another twitch.

Love thyself, and thyself can achieve greatness,
Greatness through experience, through knowledge prior.

Yellowed and ground teeth emerge behind cracked lips,
Lowyatar, goddess of plague, whispers to Ukko,
"Ukko O Ukko, I have motive and purpose,"
An old oak tree withered and turned grey at her fingertips,
Towns, once merry and full of love, died as she passed them by.

Wars waged on, fighting for what's left of love and light,
Death of brothers and fathers, feeding the mighty Tursas,
Born again from the scent of blood on the dry ground,
Who rose from the dying sea to feed upon the victims war.

Across lands bereft of verdure, dead and broken,
Men and women and children sobbed in Lowyatar's wake,
Men and women and children bowed in Lowyatar's presence.

Lowyatar stood triumphant over dying lands,
Once a sobbing child, now queen of the earth,
Pale face hidden by black and matted hair,
She opened her eyes to see the world for the first time,
Across her face twitched a smile, then with a laugh she says:
"So created. So destroyed. Behold, god I am!"