My Grandfather’s Trunk

By Janina (Skutle) Carlstad

A lifetime

Of memories

Of dreams

Crafted by his own hands

Are within

My grandfather’s trunk

A vessel filled with hopes and prayers

Of a mother

Long ago

Book of psalms

Butter box (smør box)

And best wishes, she packed it

And sent it as

She offered her son

To an unknown land

That would never

Return him

To her sight or her arms

Setting sail across the sea

Like many who’d sailed before

From distant Nordic shores

Knut

Began a life in a new world

Carving hope and adventure

Within his employ.

Like the rocks he’d plucked

From ancestral grounds

In the fields of his youth

He now became

Immersed

In the solidity

Representing the steadfast leadership of the day

The laws of his adopted homeland

Unafraid of work, Marie by his side

He ploughed the land

The oxen and yoke

Symbolic of the load they bore

Breaking in

Fitting in to new words

In a new society

Carving, tilling, sawing, seeding, logging, learning, mowing, mining

As harvest –

The family Skutle

My grandfather’s trunk

His gift to me

In my youth

Bears memories and

Dreams

As it sits by my bedside

A bridge between past

And my present…

With loving hands

I explore the strength

heralded within this legacy-

Knut’s reminiscings

catalysts to dreams

realized

as I stand in the fields

of his youth,

sharing conversation in his     Nynorsk words

embracing the views

of his life

from the mountains and hillsides

of Skutle

-----------------------------

Grandma

By Janina M. Carlstad

Light of scent

Fine fabric sewn

by skilful knowing hands

Pearls of wisdom

Strung around her neck

Embracing gentle grace

Lines of life

Wrinkle around her eyes

As she gazes out the window.

Celebrations of her life reflected

In the birdlife

Her flowers

Carefully tended

Hard work evident

In every aspect of this

Chosen new world

Her sons and their families

Gathered at her table

All around her

The creation of her life

Their partnership

The old and the new

The past

And the present of the future

Through life born

Memories shared

Cats, kittens, lace

Goats, woodstoves, sense of place

Dawn of electricity

Are lessons taught

Life lived

At 90, she sits by the table

Work worn hands

Fine with pink-tinged fingernails

Adjusting her head covering

As stories of days past

Fall upon eager ears.

Her deep husky voice

Carrying the Norwegian accent she’s never lost

Further testimony

To her legacy…

We call her “Grandma”.