Dying
is a sleek routine
while you're still alive,
but later just a statement
of town folks and savages

The Sami descendants I meet
in the remote settlement of Vuottas
make their lives in Gothenburg
and Skellefteå,
but as I bike through
during their summer visit, late in July,
they gather for a group picture
among their long gone grand parents' houses,
meticulously well kept

Next early morning
the thunder rolls in
over the village of Niemisel;
our bed a floating time capsule
we call The Great Ship of Dreams

Gushes of rain and one mosquito
broadcast a talk show
as the house holds its own,
while vanity whispers in the walls

The gravel roads of yesterday's 114 km (71 miles)
have a long experience of distances,
their long logics infesting the wilderness
with ways of approach and the means of going;
the intimidating lumber trucks' giant dust clouds
rising
over the Northbothnian conifer belt horizons
like ditto
from the Wild West's coach and six stagecoaches
across the prairies of olden