(These words were given me in a dream. In the dream I was a Finnish child of 8 or 9 who had been given by her teacher the task of writing out these 3 ancient runes of her people. This is how they went:)

1. Know the pinetrees. Know the orange dryness of sickness and death in needle and cone. Know them too in green health, those among whom your life is laid.

2. Know the ship you sail on. Know its timbers. Deep the fjord waters where you sail, steep the cliffs, deep into the unknown coast goes the winding fjord. But what would you have? Would you be tied up to a sandwhite quay in perpetual sunshine, yards and masts sprouting little violet mandolins?

3. In city, in suburb, in forest, no way to stretch out the arms--so if you would grow, go straight up or deep down.

--Denise Levertov

The runes' advice seems sound, but what I really like here is Levertov's casual acceptance of a whole different identity. I do this too, but apparently many dreamworkers wouldn't, er, dream of it.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: O Taste and See: new poems by Denise Levertov (New Directions, 1964) p.83; last piece in the book).

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