Still Swedish

Still Swedish

         running out of time

I'm twelve, Swedish and 6th-grade awkward.
Our assignment: choose a country;
write about it.

The young girl I'm sweet on chooses Sweden;
I choose Norway.
I collect photos, make a scrapbook,
dream of later-day vikings scouring the world on a raft:
Thor of the Pacific.

I'm nineteen, still Swedish, vowing I won't die until I kiss that girl!
Norway's fjords still swim through my mind.
I bus to Kansas,
prairie parting in waves as we pass.

And years pass
and I forget about that girl for awhile
and no one cares whether I'm Swedish or not.

But then, all of a sudden,
I'm fifty, still Swedish,
still wondering about that girl...
and all the boyfriends I've had since...
Not many.

Now I'm sixty, flying into Norway,
fjords and skerries spreading out below May's mountains frosted with snow.
I gather new memories of fishcakes and lefse,
try not to think of time flying by.

I take photos of clouds, steep slopes and water:
white over blue over white over green over blue.
I vow to make a new scrapbook to give to a friend.
I speak what little Norwegian I can.
I'm congratulated on my good Swedish.

Then I'm in Göteborg.
I don't know where the time has gone.
I'm still Swedish,
still thinking about that girl,
and those never-will-be-lovers
I count on one hand.

One leg in the grave, time's running out.
But I'm not quite ready to have "Takk for Alt"
inscribed on stone below my name,
two meters above my bones.

© Kåre Enga (24.september.2016) [Missoula]

~39 lines

Original in entry (on private) "Still Swedish"  and re-posted in "Still Swedish"