UPPER AND LOWER SHINING LAKES

 I was walking up to Övre Blanksjö, passing Nedre Blanksjö,

Upper shining lake/sea and Lower shining lake. When there 

on the ground was a root that looked exactly like the kookaburra, 

Jayne was sending me, the bird had come to me and manifested 

itself there in the forest, among the tall firs and huge boulders 

that make the path, glacially worn.

 

Oh the walk today was so lovely going past the place where those 

glacial rocks were played on by the pouring of roots, that found 

cracks and dips and looked like fingers playing music, I likened 

it to the music of a Bach fugue continuously trying to reach water

to reach its end and never quite making it. Some thin roots have been

grasping the stones over the tops of them like the legs of spiders.

 

Then the dells where there usually was water were now dry in 

Summer, we having been in Telemark most Summers. 

 

When we reached Nedre Blanksjö, glistening in the sun reflecting 

the blue sky and white clouds, there were people abseiling over 

the lake, harness and rope and one girl did it while we were watching,

she looked like a sea gull arms out to the sides but she dipped 

into the water, not perhaps something she intended should happen, 

her friends waited on the other side, I even felt I would ask if I could do it

until she went into the water then I decided no, the walk was just beginning.

 

We then passed the little bower, or hide, that had been green the last 

time we saw it, it had gone through a Winter. Oh this walk is so 

beautiful all the way interesting and varied. We finally arrived at 

the upper lake where the surface was indeed blank-shining, polished,

like its name-Blanksjö.

I thought the breeze did the polishing as behind the ripples it lay smoothed!

 

Lily pads floated on it and reflections played with the colours of the trees, 

we stopped beside it to eat and drink a little snack, then descended 

again to the valley nearly 3 hours and we don't walk slowly, even 

Erik with his 84 yrs is fit only occasionally needing a hand down 

a very steep bit. For his age he could be called athletic. Walking briskly 

and with a lilt to the stride.

 

Bits of notes as I went:-

 

The pounding of the feet 

(wearing the end of the root of a tree to a tiny clump)

the one, the two the beat.

____________________

Never stand still on a bog

____________________

Dead tree pointing at heaven

shadow of a tree pointing

pointless stub-tree broken off by storms

___________________

A babble like the gabble 

of the geese

some women appeared.

________________________

Ebony and ivory thoughts

hard like ice and stone

like iron and bone

_______________________

45% in woods

on needles and stones,

even feathers and bones

and definitely cones,

_____________________

Even ants create trolls with their heaps 

grasses growing out of the top as disguise?

_______________________

The ever moving of the lake, 

the breeze from the west,

and yet it lies just 

where it always does 

that water deep and dark beneath

_______________

The old dead fallen tree

as we pass we hear it crack

every time!

__________________

If nature speaks, 

just stop and listen

______________

Jayne, oh Jayne,

you send your dream-time kookaburra

on the wing,

make summer flowers of Norway 

ring their bells,

in shadowed dells they light the sky,

as I lie in the meadow,

breathing in sweet perfumes of life,

all growing and eager,

so free of strife,

innocently existing all round me,

when we can see all.

 

You'll see the flowers again, 

just wait a while

I've not gone my very last mile, 

I know it,

I feel it,

a trip in my step,

the fates cannot swallow me, 

no not yet.

 

SO THERE! Love Ann.