Midsummer
After the evening shift
we walked the trail
circling the small lake,
past the pink fireweed to
woods flanked by rocky slopes
covered with blueberries and lichen.
Midsummer in Oslo
and the sky stayed light,
the sun drawing a continuous arc
along the horizon
that curved up after midnight.
As we watched endless day fade
to shadows under the conifers,
the darkest place,
we came face to face
with something that stopped us
in utter silence—
a European elk crossing the path.
All these years later at dawn
when loud warbling fills the trees,
I think about the moment before
the creature vanished,
about the shared dormitory room
that went with the temp job,
the foraging we did thriftily,
about Nixon resigning then
on flickering black-and-white TV
and insurrection hearings now,
about our return flights home to
a country we hoped had changed
into a place where we might find
a lifetime of experiences
filled with love and idealism
rather than turmoil
and be at times speechless
at magic however fleeting.
Charlotte Melin grew up in Indiana and returns to visit. Retired from the University of Minnesota, she lives in Northfield and has published widely about German poetry, the environmental humanities, and teaching.