Desembermånen 1969

by Jamie Parsley

On the night I was born
Olav Hauge,
there, in that distant land
of ancestors with faces like mine
and their snowy graves,
in that mythic far-off place
in which blood
like my blood flowed
through earth and granite
and run-off ice,
wrote,

Han løyner stålet
i ei slire av sylv.
Det er blod på eggi.

Is it steel it hides in—
that moon?
Does it come forth
from its silver sheath?
I did, it seems.
And always, on my edges,
there is blood.

Olav H. Hauge (1908-1994) Norwegian poet