Aki

I am back for another cryptic write I see, Mmmmm, now what do I make of this dear Espen, other than you are driving me crazy, lol. Here goes. Pondering about life and the sounds of a funeral march. That is all I have, Lol. You are getting to be a tease and I cant like it, lol. Love lyz, xx.

glad to find an explanation for the title here. But the mood in your tanka is definitely an autumnal one, so I might have figured it out eventually ;) I am no tanka expert, but I liked what I read, you have captured a moment "in a string of words" as my proprietress would say. Yours, ~Nina

Dear Espen. I love the Japanese style of poetry. My favourite book is called japanese death poems. I found it in New York many years ago and have carried it with me all the time since then. I love the thought of the very moment or the now which we always seem to forget to be in because of our fanatic and crazy chase after ' other ' things. It is the simple things in life that is the most beautiful and the most important. You remind me of that. Thank You. (För en tid sedan såg jag ett intressant program om Sognefjorden i Norge. Det var den vackraste plats jag har sett. Programmet handlade om människor som lever på öarna där. En man sa att: *Här vid Sognefjorden är människorna bara sig själva och de följer sången i sina hjärtan.* I was totally amazed ! ) Love. o molly

Oh eerie, there's the sheep-bone saga again. You have the mountain wide-skied emptiness in the concrete things, the rusty the torn and tattered, I too love those decaying, rotting, forgotten things that evoke otherness. In fact I feel as if I were far away in those mountains with the silence as my companion and watching waiting while the clouds float on by oblivious of me. Lovely Espen, Ann.

I too LOVE mountains, my mother's first love was the sea, then mountains. We spent many holidays in the English and Scottish "mountains", the Scots call them hills and that is more correct. There where the spirit and the 'soul' if there is one? Together can fill the spaces ,climb the heights, feel at one with the universe, totally tiny but at the same time awesomely great. (that sounds clumsy) but I think you know what I mean, the Eastern philosophers were the ones who, for me, have described the quality of mountains for us humans. Their paintings depicting man in a proper size in relation to them. But it is also the place where we have little from the material world and can make do with odd old implements and tools, uncomfortable loos ( where the paper goes up in the winds, instead of down!!!!) Where as i see you observe odd things in the decaying woodwork or interesting object thrown off by animals or birds, yes up there one is closer to an essence of indescribable character, and I suppose the same applies as one is out on the great oceans, that space, that foreverness of the waves their distance and their movements rocking our minds into unfathomable thoughts and ideas. Oh goodness me I got carried away in the storms of those wild places, Espen. And thank you for the crit on my norsk, but you haven't seen much of it, I learnt the language through hearing it and the dialects too I understand in the same way. Greetings to you from Ann in love with mountains. P.S. What do you think of this translation, I am not sure who did this trans. but I like the norsk version don't you? And doesn't it catch that feeling of the mountains and the loneliness that is a beautiful sensitive melancholy of pure joy. En stille stein, hvor tanken tumler naer  Til elv og hede, sakte skogers ro Var makt er fjern fra slikt som lever her, Hvor ingen fot har trod med tunge sko. A klatre uten sti, og usett mot en nut, Fa se den ville flokk fly langt fra kve, Sta lent alene mot en fossesprut------- -------er ikke ensomhet. Det er a se  Naturens gave til hver den hun taler med........Lord Byron. Stanza 25 Canto 2nd Child Harold's P. To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly brace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion Dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been, To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; ------This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd. The Aunt, Jean Young, who translated the Saga's into English found the original quote for me. I felt that the first Norwegian one was fine and had a more direct language whereas the English version, from which it had been taken, was more pompous, but then it is after all Lord Byron! !!!!