Reading-spots, part 2

 
In the previous blogpost, I began a new series of posts which consists of short presentations of spots where I have had memorable reading-experiences, or spots where reading has made that spot memorable. This blogpost is the second instalment in the series, and it continues from the first one, in that it records a reading-spot which I encountered during the quarantine in my native village of Hyen in June 2020. 

As I spent some time every day walking about in the landscape surrounding the cabin where I was staying during quarantine, and as I had no other immediate obligations that dictated the rhythm of my day, I decided to explore some parts of the area more thoroughly than I would do in ordinary circumstances. My family had told me about a cave - generously speaking, as it is more of an overhang - that had been carved out of the bedrock somewhere along the brook than ran close by the cabin. I went in search for this cave by following the brook on its meandering way, and I found a little nook, easily overlooked when passing by or when approaching from the wrong angle, which provided just enough shelter to merit the description. It was an open space more wide than it was deep, but which provided a small bed of medium-sized rocks and driftwood, large enough that I could lie down there and rest. It was not a particularly comfortable place, but the view, framed by the jutting rocks and the brookbed, was excellent, and the sound of running water made the experience even more atmospheric. Lying on this little spot of dry rock in the glorious summer day also made me more appreciative of the all the little details and signs of life that came into view from that angle: the rowan saplings that thrived through sheer endurance although they would never achieve the size or stature of rowan trees in less restricted locations, the ferns and flowers that seemed to thrive in the moist and dank atmosphere provided by the brook, and the great pine tree that had now become a dry, grey giant which had survived more winters than any human alive in the village. 

In this little cave-like hollow in the bedrock I read some poems by Raquel Lanseros, one of my all-time favourite poets, whose verses became something of a life-line for me in the darkest evenings of the pandemic. Her beautiful images and the sound her of poems became even more beautiful when read under that little overhang on a Norwegian summer's day.