And, so
he marries the Finn and
Vรคinรคmรถinen
walks in
dragging the whole Kalevala
behind him on a sled
opening the word box
for the sounds to escape
and leave
to dwell inside him
the myths and lore
of Love.
A cloudberry
falling into her
pregnant
belly button
the child
fashioned from her
living in the quick quick
midnight tales
the frozen hoard of words
thawing
as my hearing
takes them in
the unborn
listening to its future
in its past.
Words upon lips
dissolving into laughter
like a falling snowflake
on the tip of a pink tongue
stuck out in
the Aurora Borealis.
***
My Finnish wife brought a dowry of an unknown mythology and on long Finnish nights told me the stories mingling them with love and laughter which was the best way to hear the tales! I also remember us looking at HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR with Finnish subtitles so that she had to translate it back into English for me creating a telling that still lives in my mind. The telling is all!
The Kalevala or The Kalewala is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lรถnnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology.
It is regarded as the national epic of Karelia and Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. The Kalevala played an instrumental role in the development of the Finnish national identity, the intensification of Finland's language strife and the growing sense of nationality that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917.
The first version of The Kalevala (called The new Kalevala) was published in 1835. The version most commonly known today was first published in 1849 and consists of 22,795 verses, divided into fifty songs (Finnish: runot). The title can be interpreted as "The land of Kaleva" or "Kalevia".
The poem begins with an introduction by the singers. The Earth is created from the shards of a duck egg and the first man (Vรคinรคmรถinen) is born to the goddess Ilmatar.
Vรคinรคmรถinen brings trees and life to the barren world.
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (26 April 1865 โ 7 March 1931) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish painter whose Kalevala paintings
and illustrations are almost integral to its story.
My favourite translation was published in 1989 by Keith Bosley (Oxford University Press) who has now brought out an audio book read by himself with a running time of 13 hours and 23 minutes!
