The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1963, Qupperneq 40

38
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1963
TWO WORD PICTURES
by KNUT R. MAGNUSSON. They appeared in the Lesbok, the literary supplement
of MorgunblaSid, a daily published in Reykjavik, and were
translated by CAROLINE GUNNARSON
THE WAVE
We kept going — on and on.
I said, “see,” and she saw. She said,
“see,” and I saw. We all saw it — she
and I and they. It was there, the big
wave, at the mouth of the fjord, far
off but drawing closer. Arrangements
were made and the captain marked
each of us with a tag. She carried her
own, I mine and my child was with her.
We were halted but the wave came on.
Two girls kept going and clambered
down the cliffs unlabelled. Our cap-
tain left us.
“Come Father, Mother — come my
wife and daughter — the wave is at our
heels. Come, come!” They came and
we ran, all but Father. He walked. I
could smell the nearness of the sea
and feel the soul swell within me.
Mother turned and went back to
Father. He was tired and leaned
against a stone. But I pushed on. My
wife held my child in her arms, and
we stood on a stone to look back. My
father was lost in the wave and it was
folding in my mother. It swept on,
mighty and all-engulfing. I ran, just
ran up the cliffs to the house on the
ridge—the old schoolhouse of my child-
hood, the source of my early wisdom.
Here I learned the alphabet, the num-
erals and skills of survival. I looked
back. My wife held my child, but she
had stopped running, and the wave
came on. With a sob that bore the
weight of the sea it took them.
I opened the back door to the old
school and stole inside. I was small
again, the school big.
AND THE RAIN FELL
It’s autumn and it’s raining. Autumn
is my season. I am kin to it and know
its nature. Only winter awaits autumn,
so it lavishes upon itself all that it
owns of glory, and dies.
Yes, we understand each other,
autumn and I, and it’s good to feel
autumn’s rain on my face, stealing
softly down the back of my head to
the nape of my neck, to soak it up and
know that I don’t weep alone, that I
am not alone in my longing.
And for some reason I’m considered
less strange in autumn, though I’m
told that I’m always a little odd. 1
yearn for fingers stroking the back of
my head. A woman’s touch upon my
head and I cease to exist. I once gave
my mother a green salad bowl on her
birthday and she took me in her arms
and kissed me. I loved my mother, so
I raised my hand and stroked the back
of her head. But mother looked at me
strangely and said: “What are you do-
ing, son?” Perhaps she is a little odd
too, unless she just doesn’t like to have
her head stroked. I wouldn’t know
and I can’t ask my father about it. I