Holding a baby would have been good today.
I had the urge to lullaby after the Krohg
exhibition.
His gold-framed wife suckling
the boy, telling stories of Nordic explorers,
magic reindeer, trolls that turn to rock.
I always loved you being sick. In a dream
you came back to me, five weeks old.
Everyone wanted to hold you.
I was anxious.
You started mouthing adult words
like a singer practising scales.
When you told me you were leaving home
for your new life in a foreign state, I looked
out from the hotel window; albino
Operahuset, glacial granite mimicking ice.
I watched you toboganning the slope
at Baw Baw. You were eight.
Raindrops melted the snow.