Are Falling Leaves
Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.
--Rainer Maria Rilke
Today I sat, reading, in the window seat of a French-style delicatessen near my house, where I had a shrimp & salad sandwich drizzled in olive oil and a cold bottle of hylleblomst saft, which in English you would call elder flower drink. Elder is common here in Scandinavia, both as a cordial made straight from petals, at home, by crafty men and women, and as a pre-made beverage in a green bottle. In times when we as humans paid more heed to folklore than we do today, it was thought unlucky to grow elder in one's garden. If an elder tree was cut down, a spirit called the Elder Mother would be released and take her revenge. Reads the poem "Wiccan Rede": 'Elder be the Lady's tree, burn it not or cursed you'll be". In order to cut the tree you had to chant a rhyme to the Elder Mother. Now elder is sold in Israel as Fanta Shokata, which is this bright red fizzy type of Fanta that kind of tastes like heavily sugared battery acid. Danish/Norwegian hylleblomst is much much better.
Oslo's getting really cold. The vanloads of begging and busking gypsies with layered skirts and accordions who were scattered all over the city area have dispersed, returned with their earnings to Budapest and Bucharest. Every first step outside immediately makes me think of Montreal, the way the skin reacts instantly and your breath suddenly adumbrates. I have a Syrian scarf, big and black and grey and red and green, but I don't have any gloves yet. Everything is quiet in the streets, the cafes and bars look sleepy until the doors open and the clatter and din and warmth inside escapes. The trees have turned from rufous to gold to sallow, to thin and tenebrous. The leaves are becoming mulch and loam, a pepper tinted carpet. The skies; greyer, often, and darker, sooner. We play basketball to keep warm, hustle to-and-fro, and it's that strange combination of sweat and chillbitten cheeks.
I hide away at nights and make processed foods with stick blenders.
Tonight I saw Kurt Wagner play under a pegged and pulleyed clothes line for his tunesheets. The audience were perhaps the most silent I've ever heard one. His voice's warm timbre was perfect for autumn. He even started, from amongst the audience, in darkness, with a hymn about autumn, a capella. Snaggletoothed. We were definitely snug there, under those songs. He made the season feel less in transition. We are meant to be here, after all.
