Ædnan

Note: Ædnan is an old Northern Sámi word meaning “the land,” “the ground,” and “the earth.” It sounds similar to the word ædno (“the river”) and ædni (“the mother”). In today’s orthography, these words are written as eana(n), eatnu, and eadni. Etymologically they seem to come from the same root word, which roughly means “great.”

[Lise]

Winter 1977
An apartment on Postgatan, Porjus

The telephone rang

half asleep
I thought it was Per
crying again

–

Rolf sat up
wide awake

and I remembered
that he was on call

–

He went to
the telephone
and I heard
him speaking

–

Where would Rolf
be going tonight:

–

Seitevare Randi Ritsem
Messaure Ligga
Harsprånget Akkats

–

All these power plants

impossible to separate
from the lunch boxes made of
stainless steel that I
sent with him

filled with dinner leftovers

–

But also specially
made meals

–

The dog jumped
bright-eyed around
us in the kitchen

claws
clacking
on the floor

–

Then she stood awhile
on the plastic mat
and had a drink

While we waited
in silence at the kitchen table

–

A lone car
drove by

but it was
not his ride

–

I took out
a tray of food
from the freezer

–

Rolf’s wash bag

from the cabinet in
the bathroom

–

The small leather pouch
with a drawstring that Mama
had once sewn

as a gift to him

–

She had given
it to Rolf
right as she
was about to leave

As part of
her gesture to
get out of here

–

Surely to
avoid
his thanks

–

And his admiration

of her handiwork

–

I’ve never been
that good
with my hands

–

From inside the room
I heard our daughter
whimper

–

Rolf
I didn’t want
Sandra to get up

to yet again

–

plant herself like a
tiny watchman between
you and me

–

The murk
in my chest pressed
into my throat

And the car came
to a stop
down on the street

–

I went back
to bed

without a word

–

Relieved that I
couldn’t think of
anything to say

that neither of us
had started
anything

–

Sandra and Per
were breathing easy
on Rolf’s side
of the bed

–

Meanwhile his blanket
and pillows
were cooling on the sofa

where he’d been sleeping
since Per was born

–

Half a year ago

after having hung
in the air for so long

–

Because Rolf
and I noticed

that we needed to
surround ourselves with
one more child

–

At dawn

the phone rang again

–

I got up to
answer it but
no one was there

–

Only that mournful
gaze that watched
me sometimes

from inside the kitchen

–

The dead old
woman’s gaze

Ristin

–

The woman who’d had
this apartment
before us

Nila’s mother

–

Nila who charged
around on the slopes
back home in Änonjalme

and who Mama
had talked about
so often

–

The overgrown
boy

–

Who frightened off
Mama and the other children
with his cries when he
hit his mother

and who’d simply come
walking one day

–

Together with the
tightly forged group
of young women who had been
forcibly removed here

–

I can still tell
by their grandchildren’s
and great-grandchildren’s
caps

–

In church and at
graduations

who comes
from Karesuando

–

Their caps aren’t
like ours

–

Now there she was again
lying on my kitchen sofa
wearing that lace-trimmed cap

As if embalmed
in a sarcophagus

–

A boat drifting
around on a dead sea
that was there just
for her

that was rocking her

–

What load
had she carried
bursting
behind her forehead

squirming
on the inside
of her cheeks

–

I stood there
receiver in hand

Taking in her slender
fingers at rest
on her womb

And I thought that everything

–

had yet to slip
from my hands

–

But I was so
angry at Rolf

I thought I
might grind
my teeth to bits

–

And really I couldn’t
stand 

Anyone
but the children
looking at me

Winter 2013
The same apartment in Porjus

Mama what are you
keeping quiet about

Sandra asked
yesterday

–

As if she were
fully aware of
the load that
she’d been given

and maybe
she is aware 

–

Sandra who has
gone and married a
reindeer keeper now

–

And fights for
every Sámi
question

as she puts it

–

I shake out
another cigarette

–

Smoke gently
under the fan

fondling the smoke

–

Remembering Grandmother’s
gesture when she stuffed
her pipe

–

I can hear
Rolf walking
into the hall

as if it
were yesterday

–

And the children
unzipping
their overalls

–

I can see Sandra
sitting at the table
fifteen years old

–

We’re eating

–

And she puts
down her fork and says:

–

Tell me what it
was like at the nomad school
Mama

I’m supposed to write
an essay about
you in school

–

And I did not

want to talk about it

–

Not all of a sudden

–

With Rolf listening
and Per looking at me
with curiosity

–

The latticework of silence
its familiar crackling around
the soft heart

–

But it will be spring

somewhere the bluethroat
awakens sings

–

Inside me
something opens loosens
lets in the years

–

I stub out my cigarette

and go over
to the dresser

–

Sit down on the floor
and pull out the
bottom drawer

–

One by one

I take out
the old caps
I’ve been saving

–

The ones I’ve turned
inside out

–

Until one of the children
comes along and wants
to use them

–

I turn my Aunt
Ella’s cap
Aunt Susanna’s cap
right side out

and then Grandma
Máret’s cap

–

The red one
with forest-green
trim

that she wore
so often

–

This was the cap
Sandra had worn

when the police put
their hands on
her head

–

And pushed
my grown girl to the ground

–

This ground
that she loves so much

Ground that she and her
friends want to protect
from overseas
mining companies

–

The police
tore this cap
right off
Sandra’s head 

Now this memory can no
longer be separated

from Grandma’s cap 

–

Which I must have
seen her wear
a hundred times

when she rowed out
across the water

–

What if I had done
more than just listen

–

When Aunt Ella
talked about the Lapp
as a primitive
human

who knew
nothing of the
great big world

–

What if I had instead
asked her

why she’d say a thing like that

–

Deeper down in the drawer

lay Mama’s piles
of colorful shoe bands
which I’ve saved

–

Bands she wrapped
around pieces of
cardboard she cut

from the phone-book
cover

–

I can tell at once
by how the bands are
wound and
how the lace
is folded

that this is
her work

–

I’ve uncovered so much
of what she
left behind 

but never put it to use

–

Trimming ribbon and ruffles
torn loose
from other clothes

surely things
that were threadbare

–

Her many
buttons and
old needle books

–

The little needle case
made of reindeer horn that she
had on her belt
that one time

–

The seaplane made
an emergency landing in the fells
and she was there

and had to mend
a tear in the wing
with sinew thread

–

You didn’t usually
have the needle case
on you Mama

But that time
you did

–

You who always said
that you were sure
I’d marry a Swede

because I was too
impractical for
Sámi life

–

Even though it was me
who stripped and
sanded this dresser
for you

–

Your wine-red tall
heavy dresser

That has become almost
like the dam out there

–

An embankment
where all that has
come to pass collects

in a gliding
great cold whirlpool
that mixes
up all of time

–

Leeches the color from
every emotion

–

I’m about to
open another drawer
when my phone
rings

Could be Sandra
maybe Per

–

But I don’t make it
up and off the floor 

in time to answer

February 4, 2016
After the Girjas verdict

It’s been a long
time since I heard you
this clear

and somehow astounded
as in-the-world as
yesterday Sandra

when you called

–

You said the verdict
had been passed

–

Girjas Sámi village
who is suing
the Swedish state

For hunting and
fishing rights within the
Sámi community’s boundaries

–

You said:

Girjas won Mama
we won in Gällivare
District Court

–

Now we wait
for the State
to appeal

–

I needed
a long smoke

after we’d hung
up the phone

–

Will a new
trust in the State
now begin to grow

–

Or will the great Swede
put on ever weightier
armor

until we end up
in full-scale battle

–

What will you do then Sandra
which pathways do you
foresee in your struggle

above and beyond your voice

–

How many times now

haven’t you asked
me to talk

–

Talk to me about your
life Mama
you say

without understanding
how embarrassed I get
when you say:

–

You have to write
your story down
Mama

write your history

–

talk about your journey

–

I haven’t
been able to explain
to you Sandra how
wrong it feels

–

When you call
the fact that I
have existed and
am still here

my journey

July 2012
Låddejåkkå

Hello voices

–

Hello Mama
hello Papa

Rolf my love

–

May I be
among your
emotions again

wash me forth
with your gaze

–

Hello friends

So nice to see you here
your arms are glowing

–

Come come

and clarify
me

–

Lend me
the features you have
borne with you

pour out my
colors

–

Must I say it out loud

that I am thinking of life
and so I wander

–

Must I also say

–

that I am missing life

–

But surely you’ve
already sensed this

–

By my attention

my mood

–

The grass on the fell heath
is so brittle
tender

the aged
hands yearn
the soul burns

–

Hello Papa

hello Mama

–

Jon-Henrik my
brother and Rolf
my husband

you’re missed here

–

You too Sandra
my daughter and
Per my son

–

Even though you are
still here

–

In the light I could
see Rolf again upon
the rocky beach

–

Now I’m no longer
sure if it really
was him

Or if my
old eyes lie

see what they want to see

–

In summer
I wander alone
through the tundra

my cane in hand

–

In my backpack
I’ve put coffee and salt
some bread

–

If I catch a fish I’ll eat
otherwise not

–

Dear Jon-Henrik

How am I to know
that you’re not a
dream I once had

of my own creation

–

So much time
has passed since
we last spoke

–

Life

still beats in me
fingers searching
voice breathing

–

And yet so great is the loss
of what once was

your bodies

–

Mama

who sensed me
coming

–

You were the first
woman in the family
to give birth in the confines
of a Western
hospital

–

Why did it make you so
sad to give birth to
me Mama

Just because I wasn’t
a boy
like Jon-Henrik

–

I remember

when you cut
my hair

–

You said it didn’t
much matter

it would grow
long again

–

I stretch out
on the grass with
my backpack on

to recover
a bit

–

It’s not far
to the creek now

–

The cold one by the
old reindeer-herder cairn

where Papa and
I would get
into such long talks

–

My legs quake

when I lean
over to scoop
up water

–

And can’t I just
hear Papa saying:

If you stop
for a drink
at every stream

–

you’ll never get
to where you’re going

–

Once I ask
him out here
on the tundra

it was up
by the gorge where
one can find
ferns

–

Why Mama
had so wanted
another son

We didn’t have
any reindeer to
care for after all

–

Gaisu-Lise
Papa said and smiled

you think too
much

–

But still wasn’t I 

the one

–

Who slid
Sandra’s wedding ring
on her finger

–

Who sent Per out

into this hallowed
bright room

That I’d
prepared for him

–

Maybe

–

I’m aware of how
plain my admiration
for Per has been

And how differently
I’ve perceived you Sandra

–

You’ve always said
this is because you
unlike Per

will one day turn into me

–

I know that I
should have talked
to you

When you as if duty-bound
stayed together with your
first love

–

Who you met
when you were sixteen

and are still
married to

–

But I said nothing

–

Not a word did I share
about myself

–

Even though the years
coursed through me like
black paint 

when you said you
were moving in together

–

And not a word
about myself did I share
with you Per

–

When you said
you’d taken on a new
driving schedule

And would only be
seeing your daughter on
the weekends

–

My grandchild Jasmin

who reminds me
so much of
my mother

–

Who I was
forced to leave at
the age of seven

I had to leave
my life behind

–

when will I return

–

Oh how I missed
you ieddne when I was
at the residential school 

oh how I missed
you áhttje

–

Oh how you missed Rolf
Per

when he was
off working

–

At Vietas or
Akkats

Spring 1959
The Nomad Residential School

The Swedish
language grew
along my thoughts

–

The Sámi since long
asleep in the body
of shame

obedience overlaid

–

Clamped
shut up inside

The voice moved
barely perceptible
almost impossible
to budge

–

The Swedish history
of power-hungry kings
mighty great nations

lifted the entire class
toward worship
closer to worship

–

But of our own
history not a word
was written

–

As if our
parents and we
had never existed

had never shaped
anything

–

My heart saw

a ruling body
remove itself from
the world of bodies

–

A hero’s
ruling body

–

I was not
dismissive of
that radiant
body

Not resistant
in the face of the mighty

–

The instinct to adapt
was strong

tumbling from my chest

–

While the ruler’s
eye gnawed its way
into my life

right through my time

–

A wide-open
child-body

Having lived
for years in its
conquerors’ house

–

Recast by
its great

gazing halls

Pentecost 1973
In the kitchen

It’s called Blue Danube

says Britt-Marie
as I unwrap
the paper

–

A teapot
cups and plates made of
blue-patterned porcelain

–

I say thank you and
feel her soft
back against my hands
warm under her blouse

as we hug

–

Then I carefully fold
up the wrapping paper
put it in the closet

–

From inside the room
I hear Rolf sit down
with the others

–

He says that it
was one of his
work friends’
mothers

who usually handled
the funerals
in the Communists’
little chapel

–

A small gray building
at the far end of
the churchyard

which Grandmother
kept away from

–

And was built
for those who didn’t want
to be buried by the priest

–

I hear him laugh

and think again that
Rolf is not me

–

Even now

–

though so many
years have passed since I
graduated from nomad

I only need to shut my eyes
to wander out among
God’s angels

dancing in circles

–

Yellow trumpets
to their mouths

–

I can hear the sound
of their rustling mantles
as they file into some
verdant kingdom of heaven

on one of the cardboard posters

–

nailed to the wall
in every classroom

–

I remember when I
met Rolf

–

I was still sure that
you’d get a lightning bolt
to the head

if you disavowed God

–

At nomad the
Læstadian girls wore shawls
to hide their hair

–

And when Mama once
heard that a little first cousin
of mine wasn’t going to be baptized

it became to her a
child of sorrow

–

Who was going to hell

where several of the Læstadian
girls’ parents were
also going

–

The earnest Læstadian
girls

who weren’t allowed to look
at themselves in the mirror

–

Who surely suffered
from the knowledge that
their parents had already
as children
been damned

because they’d made
themselves
guilty of mortal sin

–

In the tent schools
in the twenties

Where one summer they
let themselves be
photographed
naked

by the racial biologist

–

Because the teacher
and the priest had convinced
their families

That the parliamentary
decision these
so-called scientists
had invoked

to get them to
undress for those pictures
had to be followed

–

Pictures
they would
never get to see

And would never
find out what they
were for

–

In the morning
we wake early
drink strong coffee

–

Hear Uncle Ernst
treading around in
the apartment below us

Before he turns
the key
tramps into the stairwell

–

Then he knocks awhile
on our door

Some article in Flamman
has probably upset him

–

and now he needs to
discuss it

–

But we don’t
want to be home

we disappear
under the covers

–

Later in the evening
Rolf and Malte talk for ages

mostly about work

–

We sit in the kitchen

and I fill our new cups
with coffee

–

There’s knocking
at the door again

But this time it’s not Ernst
it’s Papa

–

It’s the first time
he has stopped by
for a visit
on his own

–

I see him at rest
bringing the cup
to his mouth

As Rolf and he
start talking about someone
they both know

–

Right as I get
up to put
on more coffee

I hear

–

Malte saying to Rolf:

By the way do you know
how to tell a girl is a Lapp
just by looking at her

–

Well her slit runs
crossways instead
of down the middle

and he laughs<

–

But Rolf doesn’t laugh

–

Nor does he see
the temper in
Papa’s eyes

Fall 1975
Stuor Stuodak Mountain, Gällivare, Norrbotten County

When Papa is on his deathbed

he asks me to help
him get home

–

He’s been cared for
awhile at the hospital
in Gällivare

–

He seems so
completely
occupied

by his own
concentration

–

On what
I do not know

–

But it makes me
not want to interrupt

–

Jon-Henrik and I
have been smuggling
beer in to him
for several days now

–

We dress him in
warm clothes

–

As usual we say
that we’re going
for a stroll and take
him with us

get him in the car

–

Mama didn’t want
to help

She says
it’s too taxing

–

Fall’s cool
mist sinks gray
through the air

settles in the grass
gleams on
the rocks

–

We’ve got Papa
in the ATV

We make our slow way
to the lake

–

Then there he lies
in the wilted grass

gazing at the water

–

I sit on a rock

–

Let my fingers wander
across the rugged
rock-skin under me

while the nature
around us gently
ferries me off

–

To a starker
landscape

–

That might exist too

–

It is high up
on the Norwegian coast

–

Great boulders
lie there rattling
against each other

And the Atlantic winds
blow through the crevices
between the rocks

–

I can hear them
playing on the coast

as if on a
colossal organ

–

Papa died
that day

we never thought
it would
happen

–

He gets stiff and
far too heavy for
Jonne and me

–

And we have to arrange
for the seaplane
to come 

take him
down for us

–

His shrouded
body does not fit
in the plane

–

We end up having to
strap him
to one pontoon

–

What was I to
say to Rolf

what was I to
say to our children

–

How am I to
tell stories about life

–

Without becoming the
eccentric Sámi

Making jokes
at my own
expense

–

How am I to
explain to them

that the ruin
is in my voice

Summer 1977
Porjus

Rolf and I
we bought Mama
a life vest

–

After Papa
had died she kept
on fishing alone
up in the fells

but she didn’t want
to put it on

–

I’m not about to float
around in the water
freezing to death
is what she said

–

But I’ll tie
my handbag
to the boat

So you can fish
the money out if
I fall in

–

Mama

come for a visit
I begged

–

I said that Jonne
was coming
might eat with us

so then she came along

–

In the car she refuses
as usual to
buckle up

–

But she holds
the seatbelt
across her lap

in case the police
pass by

–

So she won’t get a fine

–

Her restless steps
in the kitchen
is it hot in here
she says

–

Once more she asks
when Jon-Henrik
is coming

–

And if I know
when he’ll next be
up in the fells

where he now has
his handful of reindeer

–

I wonder how
it’s going for him
she says

He has it good
don’t you think

–

And I could see
him in front of me

six seven years old

–

He’s lying
on the grass
talking with Papa

And is wearing
that sweater she
knitted him

–

With a glossy yarn
that shone
in the sun

the one on which it said
The Son

–

After we finish eating
he calls to say that
he isn’t coming

–

And I scoop
his portion into a
lunch box for Rolf

stick it in the freezer

–

Something smells
Mama says

and goes outside to
get some air

–

When she comes back in

she’s already arranged
a ride homeward along the river
with some Swedes

–

She says she can
walk the final stretch

–

And I send a
pack of cigarettes
with her

–

So she’ll have
something to do

Winter 2015
The Swedish Conversation Club, Porjus

The waves rustle

they turn and
withdraw

–

Life by the river

has often
been like life
in the reeds

–

the reeds by the river bank
where Moses was placed

–

An awareness that
someone might
unexpectedly arrive

–

and suddenly
exist here

–

I have walked along
the rocky beach

By boat I have taken
myself across the river
to the other side

–

That’s as far as
you can go

–

Downstream the dam
stands in the river’s way

–

And upstream
the rapids
stop you

–

I’ve taken the car

followed the asphalt where
it has been spread

–

Roads that ran between
the Swedes’ power stations
and mines

to which so many
people had come

–

Blown ashore

to then put down roots

–

Here in this haphazard
garden

high up in the river valley

–

The German deserter
who Papa
would talk about

–

The one who came
wandering across
the fell one evening

all the way from the
Norwegian side

–

One winter when Papa
was young

–

Barefoot in the snow
the soldier had shouted
that his feet were burning

–

And the American
draft dodger

who boarded with Mama
and me in the fells
when Sandra was small

–

Rolf was about to leave for
the summer to work in Vietas

when that young
American arrived

–

With the tourist boat

–

The man had been
called up for Vietnam
but fled

He boarded with us
for a few weeks

–

We taught him to weave
Sámi bands that he
would sell to tourists

–

He was warm
he said that
I was warm

behind the rocks

–

Sandra had lain in the grass

Eaten cloudberries and
dried meat from Mama’s
cutting board

which she had brought
out with her

–

Outside the window
it’s snowing now

–

And people
have begun blowing
this way again

After all these years
of thinning out

–

When all they did
was drift away

After Vattenfall
withdrew

–

Now they’re whirling
up this way again

–

I put on the down jacket
Sandra gave me
zip it up

Then I walk down
the hill to the conversation club

–

Bibbi’s already there

I think she looks
the same as she did
back at nomad 

–

But of course I know
we’re over the hill
to them

to the young people
who’ve moved here

–

Nearly two hundred
refugees came to Porjus

Until then there were
three hundred and fifty
of us living here

–

I try to talk
with a young man

I want to say that he
looks like my Per

–

Per who’s only ever
on the road

in his truck

–

But my English
won’t stretch

–

Then I sit a long time
and search his face

For signs
of dreams imagination
and calm

–

I think
I find traces
of violence

but I don’t know

–

And then I think
I see

–

something I recognize
from my own life

–

In Bibbi’s high
closed hard
face

sitting across
from me like
a leaden shield

–

And around her
heart as well

–

Bibbi
have you also done
everything you can

–

To never
be taken for dumb
or primitive

for someone who
let themselves
be conquered
and has been too
obedient

–

The door opens

And in comes
a cousin of Bibbi’s who
takes a seat at the table

–

They speak such a
lovely Sámi

–

It’s the same dialect
that was spoken back home
on our hill

–

The language that
still existed when
we started school

Jonne and I

–

Am I that dumb 

that I can’t manage
to keep my own
language alive

–

I just let it slip away

be driven from my children

–

So now Sandra
sounds like a book
no dialect at all

Trying
as a grown woman
to learn Sámi
with her children

–

I can’t get a sound
out those many times
she says:

Answer me in Sámi
Mama

–

And I want to share this

With that young
man sitting at
the table next to Bibbi

–

with his coffee cup
and cinnamon bun

–

But all I can do is smile
and he smiles back

nods knowingly
raises his cup

–

Does he know that I’m
sitting here listening
to his language

–

Between the words
that are no more than sounds
to me

and which I
do not understand

–

I can sense something
he has left behind
has lost

–

and that he does
not want to do without

–

Will he also
have a child here
at some point

Which language will
his grandchildren
get to speak

–

Which birds and trees
will they learn
the names of

and which songs
will they sing

–

About sun and wind

war and men

rich and poor