Lullaby

Ancestors
rise up from
the swamp
laughing
in their beards:
Don’t sniff yet,
last-born child.
We are followed
By Mr. Methane.
Spare your face
For him.
© Yelling Rosa
24.1.16

Esi-isät nousevat

Esi-isät
nousevat suosta
ja partaansa nauravat:
Älä vielä nyrpistele.
Meidän jälkeen täältä
pulpahtaa metaani.
Säästä sille naamasi.
© Yelling Rosa
24.1.16

The Kalevala

The Finnish National Epic Kalevala, translated by Keith Bosley, has been a great support for me every time I have lost the real idea of poetry and started to think my own good. We all know that we, people, accept only that truth we can go along with but the real epic rises up from the social basic. It has been the forum where also unpleasant sides of life are revealed. It was a good tradition that helped villagers live in peace among themselves. This modern time thinks much of itself and sniff at the wisdom of generations gone. This arrogance has caused a lot of damage to earth and humanity making a man more an object than a living creature.

I am happy that I have Keith’s permission to attach one of the verses he has translated, namely the song of unknown Ingrian bard performing in 1858 (Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic, 26:141-5). This verse is not a part of the Kalevala but it describes the Kalevala spirit brilliantly and Keith chose it in the introduction.

Of what use are we singers
what good we cuckoo-callers
if no fire spurts from our mouths
no brand from beneath our tongues
no smoke after our words!

Every time I have read these lines I am aware of walking mostly on a right path. As I wrote in my second collection: “No need to fight. Children win every time”. This main thread, the red thread as we say in Finland, is often lost from me but thanks to its color it can be found again.

I hope that I have at least a drop of my Karelian ancestors’ blood and my words will leave a tiny little smoke to warm your heart for a real epic and traditions of mankind.

The Kaleva, Oxford World’s Classics