Sognefjord

Even on this boat,
on this fjord,
there is someone
looking at a screen.

Oblivious to the passing beauty
that will outlive our LCD: our acid

and our own synapses.

Overfamiliarity is no excuse.

I got burnt today,

in the wind below

where the dregs

of slowly melting snow

are the glacial prints,

where ice age fingers

were dragged towards

the permanent peace

in narrow streams.

I got burned by beauty

that leapt from the sun

and was magnified by

every contour,

every millilitre of pure water,

every centimetre of distance travelled,

every knot of speed,

and every quark of every atom

of every cell of my love's

generous and radiant being.

Beauty leapt from the sun,

was magnified in those

obscenely majestic ricochets,

and left me burnt and tender.

The Spirit hovers

over the deepest fjord

in silent sparks

and seemingly random

flashes of purpose.

If you let the collisions burn you tender,

those sparks will pierce your skin

and whisper misty, wooded

secrets to your future,

breathing on the embers

of your engine

to catch and flicker,

and grow and roar

again.

But if you freeze your exterior

with blackened windows of glitz and litter,

the sparks merely irritate your periphery

as your engine's embers slowly

fade into technology, and die

in the efficiency of the lifeless digital,

and the safety of ambition-less goals.

Please,

shut down your screen,

go outside,

and feel.

You cannot become overfamiliar

with the architect of these deep waters,

the one who set the sparks

that silently and politely shouts

“Please,

Shut down your screen,

Go outside,

and feel.”


This June, while visiting some wonderful friends in Bergen, my amazing fiancé Silje took me on Sognefjord for my birthday. Sognefjord is Norway's deepest and longest Fjord and this really was 'the trip of a lifetime'. The ferry took us the five and a half hour journey from Bergen through the length of Sognefjord, to Flåm... and back again. Although we were on the boat for over eleven hours the time flew by because the mountains, the water, the air, the sky and the quaint villages made the most breathtaking scenery and atmosphere. We were about nine and a half hours though our journey when I noticed someone on their laptop, with their headphones in, watching something 'entertaining'. I wrote this there and then... not only as a criticism of someone watching a screen in that enchanting place, but also as a celebration of the beauty of creation, and the overwhelming vibrance of that day.