SCENE, EXT: by Linn Björnsdotter

Linn Björnsdotter | August 25th, 2021 | poetry | No Comments

Poem

The garden after the scout meeting, a Saturday morning, 2002

Earlier, I gathered firewood
– dry sticks and tinder

/do not break branches
that are still alive/

my small hands being taught survival,
or sanctity

or both.

Now, I am at home.
I undress in the garden,
because mother tells me I reek of smoke.

The sun is clinging onto summer,
still gently warming my skin.

In the lavender flowerbeds,
I collect the bodies of bumblebees
so impossibly light
in my trembling palm.

I do not think big thoughts
of how this is a metaphor
for the work of a god
caring so tenderly
of our insignificant breaths.

I just bury the soft insects
in the soil,

and go on.

Poet Bio

Linn Björnsdotter is a writer, performer, educator and editor from Sweden. She debuted at the Swedish National Poetry Slam Championship in 2012, and has since then performed on stages all over Sweden, Scotland and South Africa with her award-winning work. Her writing explores how socio-political issues take hold in the body of the individual. Currently, she is working on her first collection of poems. She doesn’t like bios and hates having to participate in a capitalist system that requires her to market herself.

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