here comes the sun

there stood a cabin in the lee of the amethyst mountain

they all lived there

and that is where he was born…

…born as was foretold, when the nights were long when the wind would send drifts of snow like sculptures right over the windows…he would come three days after the moon had set and hung low, huge, deep golden yellow in a deep blue black sky…he was born on the waning of the ice moon when the green lights danced to announce his birth to all who might look and see , just as had been said…

…Aili’s mother had the gift and her mother before that, they knew who he was and all he would do and what was to be and when she gazed into his purple eyes she knew that they were right…

…he had become an artist and not the woodman he had set his heart on, a man about the world now, a modern time nomad who missed the wide spaces and the endless skies of his homeland. He was a poor man, and not led the life his family did, driving the reindeer to their new pastures and home for the counting… but he never lost his love of nature, with her he was one and he was ready to die when he heard her call; he felt his strength leave his body like an ebbing tide...he would die like his mother before him when he was but two years old…

…he had no savings and he needed very little to survive…just his chisels for the carving , brushes, pencils and some paper and he thought little about food…though the golden cloudberries they picked in the bog in late July stirred his innards every time he thought of them…he remembered picking  Kullero for grandmother who taught him that flowers are best left  so that they should grow…their yellow buttercup heads a celebration of the northern bogs where he had spent his childhood…

…he remembered the cold of the dew he felt under bare feet and he bathed naked in the deep blue lampis, the small spring water lakes reflecting the sky in their cool waters…

…he sang  his songs like his grandmother did and drew and carved and painted from his soul the way grandfather had taught him. He drew all the things that he missed the most that were of home and kept him connected until he was the only one left. He painted all that he knew and loved, his friends in the north, the reindeer and their herders, wolves and foxes, hares and the hunters, their way of being, the flowers of spring, cotton grass and marsh orchids, calling crows, birds on the wing, renewal of life and of living and when the last daisies began to fade he knew that the summer would be over very soon and the time for the first dusting of snow would not be long.  He drew the sun and the moon, winter and summer and he sold his work in bars and bistros for a meal and a bed and then he moved on…

…he loved to tell his stories to anyone who would listen about life behind the mountain where grandfather would go inward by the sound of the drum that sent him to sleep and how grandfather would stop his own breath and the colour would leave his face and turned black. He told how grandfather could have been left for dead…but the drummers and the others stood by and kept watch, knew better than to disturb him and  often waited many hours for his safe return…he was visiting his ancestors who told him the way forward and at last the black faded from his face change again as he began to breathe once more, He came back with news of what they were to do… where to take the reindeer and who would stay behind. Grandfather was always right and the family and their reindeer herd thrived and grew strong…. but this life was not to be for him, he had other work to do…and his heart broke many times for him to follow the calling of his life…

…he had no pain now and the pillow was no longer stained red from his coughing…he felt no hunger…he was warm…he needed nothing more and he thought of his mother, mami, he called as he looked for her when she had gone when still so young and he was calling her now…he needed only to be with her now…he had done his singing and telling and drawing , done his carving. He had done what was expected and foretold, he had recorded all that was to be remembered…and now it was his time to go…

…it had been a long night and he waited for the sun to rise…once more to see her paint the glorious pinks and orange on the snow laden trees… and light up the snow with a million diamonds…low on the horizon at the turning of the year when the day was short…

… his eyes had grown pale and it was time to leave now all that he knew…

…to return to where they had once all lived together, loved and died and birthed…

…back to the cabin that stood in the lee of the amethyst mountain…