Sibelius

The forests discern him,

the forests of idle turbulent rain,

whose horses, bridled, barely,

whose chariots, burn.

GILLIAN ALLNUTT

Barkbröd

for Michael Mott

I used to think of him as Väinämöinen – seer, demigod.

I told him to his face once, when flushed with wine.

He smiled his sour smile and called me ‘cheesemonger’.

Last week he told me that an elk had stamped his lawn.

(Of course reindeer milk gives the best of gamey cheeses.)

I told him his ‘Kullervo’ called all creatures home.

I went with Birgit to Helsinki for his symphony.

What I heard there was a growling. We took the tailor, Hirn,

who singled out the culprits: bassoon and double bass.

Someone said this new work sounded ‘mountainous’.

‘Barkbröd’, Hirn said. ‘Like the mix of grain and tree bark

which kept our ancestors alive’. Others took the likeness up.

“‘Austere’, ‘introspective’, ‘spare’?” the maestro sneered

when I told him that his Fourth brought Barkbröd to mind.

He flapped his hands about as if such compliments were flies.

I took exception to the gesture. Flies in my shop!

Then he turned on our tutunmaa, a perfectly pale yellow,

and declared it ‘off’. I gestured towards the door.

‘Allow me,’ I said, ‘to know and nurse my own cheeses’.

(He patronised me, he once said, for my turn of phrase.

‘It's just as Finnish as your symphonies,’ I replied.)

Not content, he singled out my juustoleipä for abuse.

To him it might as well have been old gammalost

that nourished Norsemen on their long sea trips.

I’ve thought of him as one of our forefathers since,

his fine hands clutching rough dark rye barkbread.

Yes, he would yearn then for my ‘elemental’ cheeses.

TONY ROBERTS