from Aednan [XI]

Linnéa Axelsson

Dápmotjávri. Aslat’s grave. Karesuando Cemetery.
Fall–Winter 1920
(Ber-Joná)

That fall
the Lapp Bailiff came

The ruling language
ran over us

Swedish words
impossible to pronounce

They pushed in
through our clothes
coated our skin

The needling gaze

a rain through
all that one loves

Dirty were we
living with dogs

half-nomads who
followed after livestock

Bread so tough it
made your teeth fall out
baked by our women

In the midst of the breeding grounds
he appeared
with the darkening sky

To hold forth
among our
cows in heat

He had a message
from the three
countries’ men

Swedes Norwegians
and Finns

Far away from
the reindeer’s world several
families had been selected

We had to start forcing
our herds to graze on
strange lands

We were to be driven
from the forests mountains
and lakes

Migration paths and songs
had to be stifled
stricken from memory

The herd’s memory

the reindeer calves’ legs
that always
led us home

Now they would be born
on other lands

Now each step
homeward in autumn
was a departure from
our lives

My brother and the others

said farewell to the trails
and hillsides

Never again would
we sit on the island’s slope
where the ocean smoothed
the stones

where Aslat once
had learned to walk

With this my stomach
tied itself in dark knots

While winter
as ever
whitened on

from all the colors
around us

And we tried
to scare off wolves
we traveled fast through
frozen forests

Then I was again
at home in the winterland

Watching twilight
dwindle gray between
gray farms

In the birch forest
across the ice
was a group of cots

With pillars of smoke
rising beyond
the graveyard
where you were waiting
Ristin

Beyond
the graveyard walls

by Aslat’s grave

I took your hand

you had an
infected wound above
your eyebrow

Silent you placed
the last stone
from the coast

on his grave

Nila’s fingers
had to be held
like jerking
reins

And the familiar
waves spoke
to me

of a freedom
in the sea

I said that I
hated the reindeer

but needed them
too

We have to leave
Aslan again

For the sake of work
and the herd

Here he would
remain
alone

While we were being driven
from our homes

Then you said:

What kind of home is it
where no one dares say
our son’s name

Aslat is forgotten

Only his fate
is remembered

But you promised me

that his head was resting
safely in his grave

The dead
were not allowed to be
exhumed

And the bells
tolled beyond
the forest

We were called
to a church weekend

One last time
we would
meet our own

Because now it was full

It was full of
people in the village