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Eivind E. Olsen

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Thin Leaf

On a winter day, much like a day in fall
except the trees are bare, I find a leaf
blown up from the yard, thin as a thumbprint
and slightly larger than my own. 

Its brown skin is cracked and translucent:
a ghost against a stone step;
or a child’s handprint on a window
only seen when the sun shines in.

But it’s not like a child at all,
not even the shadow of one,
it’s pale and starved with veins mere ribs
like a cage holding only the heart.

I’m afraid my touch will break bones
or that photons will shatter its skin
but the leaf imprints the sky
like a full moon in daylight

when I lift it. It’s only a leaf,
I tell myself and yet I save it
on a shelf like change
that I forget about.

One spring day it is swept off
by a draught, and with nothing to resist
still floats down between my feet and asks,
Will you hold me to the sun again?

As I raise it overhead once more
it overlays a tree in pink bloom
in my yard, and in a flash
shows me one stranger’s suffering

and wilts to ash that coats my thumb.

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Blueprints for Winter

1.

A thin day-moon on a blue sheet sky
is loss: its flesh held in memory
and earth packed winter hard

around a tombstone with epitaph:
Because every day was too short, he stretched them,
raced them, until one day he passed them by.

And the sunglow in windows across a lake
are sunglasses tilted on his head
atop shoulders becoming arms becoming hands

gripping oars that pull across the lake, past oaks
and elms that now are bare trophies of themselves
with shadows cast long in a spotlight’s glare.

And crows in their crowns are dust motes
on a shelf, or coal splintered off a pencil’s tip
sharpened to draw the stars.

2.

A thin day-moon on a blue sheet sky
is life: its flesh in the womb
and expectation pegged to a line

as a white embroidered gown, handed down,
and aired out by a grandmother months before
who simply knows it’s a perfect fit. 

And the sunglow in windows across a lake
are stained glass murals along a nave, and a font
by the altar a tiny version of it,

where parents, an uncle and an aunt
stand proud as solemn oaks and elms
with sunlight spilling from their youthful faces.

And crows in their crowns are hairs made static
by a bonnet, or coal splintered off a pencil’s tip
sharpened to draw the stars.

3.

A thin day-moon on a blue sheet sky
is hope: its flesh hung in between
a summer dress and hospital gown,

one picked down fresh for an operation
and pulled over head before the patient
is slid under surgical lights.

And the sunglow in windows across a lake
are shards of a broken vase, pebbled and thread
to a rosary, circled endlessly

as the path around the lake, past oaks
and elms that are candelabra of themselves
in the space of days growing brighter.

And crows in their crowns are the candles lit
or coal splintered off a pencil’s tip
sharpened to draw the stars.

__________

Eivind E. Olsen is a poet from Stavanger, Norway, who spent several years in Texas growing up, and an MA student in Creative Writing at Lancaster University working on his first chapbook. He writes in English and Norwegian. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Dewdrop, Cathexis Northwest Press and an anthology to be published by Tupelo Press.

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