GAS Featured Poet: Lennart Lundh

 Lennart Lundh is a poet, photographer, short-fictionist, and historian. His work has appeared internationally since 1965. An online search will reveal most of his books, other writings, and readings. It will also probably give you information on the late Swedish actor after whom he was reportedly named.

Short Essay Exam

 

If you water the shadow of a tree,

dark against the sun-white sidewalk,

what will grow there by your act?

 

And if you’re three years old,

and you water the shadow of a tree,

what will grow in you with the years?

 

And if you’ve grown, old but not concrete,

will you watch out the open window,

cheering other water, other shadows?

 

(after watching the 1996 short film Prelude, by Guy Sherwin)

 

 

Wake Field

 

I’m walking with a cat

in a fog-chilled graveyard

haunted through centuries.

This isn’t my cat,

they’re not my ghosts,

and they’re no more

interested in bothering me

than I am in being frightened.

Their elusive, flowing shapes

are wrapped in the mist,

unreflected in the damp

surfaces of stones and statues,

as their voices are lost among

the sounds of wind-tossed

leaves and my footsteps.

My ghosts don’t wait here,

occupied as they are by

inhabiting every heartbeat,

every thought that contains you.

 

(after the 1964 photograph “Wakefield, West Yorkshire”, by John Bulmer)

 

The Bride

 

She sits alone in her wedding gown.

 

She sits alone, a princess

whose prince changed his mind.

 

She sits alone as the sun sets

on her husband’s home, now hers,

coached but unsure of the future.

 

She sits alone on her wedding night,

her new husband called by his king,

leaving her to mourn without knowing

if he’ll return to her or be returned.

 

She sits alone with all the possibilities.

 

 

(after the 1903 painting by Wassily Kandinsky)

 

 

Working Backward

 

Far into a future we won’t see,

the star that binds all this will die.

 

With time, the sun that feeds us

will eat this planet like a snack.

 

Eventually, all traces we leave

will crumble back to their source.

 

Sooner or later, our kind will either

disappear or abandon the Earth.

 

After you and I are gone, this house

in which we are making love tonight

will be swallowed by fire or forest.

 

Or maybe not. But, for now, please

ignore the things beyond the curtains:

Hold me as if every word were true.

 

 

(after an unattributed photograph of an abandoned house in the Republic of Karelia, Russia)