The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1971, Qupperneq 35

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
33
In a deep chair in a far corner of the room,
A shapely head in soft white curls
Nods in the warm glow of the candlelit twilight.
A tiny girl stands by a small window
In the dusk of evening and traces the
Delicate pattern of the flowers on the glass,
She blows warm breath on the frozen pane
And through a circle of clear transparency sees
The moonbeams flit over the shining runners
Of a sleigh standing on the hard snow.
Far off on the plains beyond the bare trees
A coyote howls in hunger and loneliness
And she shudders at the grief of him.
She turns and takes a candle from the hand
Of her mother and places it in the window.
Its light is a living flame that feeds on
Its waxen form. In the middle of the small
Room a shiny iron stove closes around roaring
Flames that feed on trees of the forest.
Rendered fuel in the sweat of a father’s brow,
They wrap his loved ones in wellbeing while the
Wind howls like a hungry wolf at the door
Of the small cabin in the clearing.
Gradma is dreaming in the deep chair
At the far end of the room.
The man and the woman turn from the window
To their children, who look up with faces
That glow like candles in the dusk.
Grandma rubs her eyes, blinks at the
Twinkling tree and smiles wistfully down
The years to the generations that have everything
With more to come and the Moon about to
Drop into their laps.
Rut the light is in the window, where it
Has been for uncounted ages on this enchanted
Evening, the tree stands fell and glowing.
In the shelter of its branches an ancient
Angel sits with grubby, child-caressed wings.
Warmth, light and a dreamy tenderness
Draws close the generations.
It’s Christmas.
— Caroline Gunnarsson