Hello, Poetry Friend
Welcome back to my occasional series, sharing poems inspired by reading and rereading Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter.
Enter Gunnulf, Erlend’s brother. He’s been to Canterbury, and this is around the time of The Canterbury Tales. I like to imagine he and ol’ Chaucer hanging out, singing ballads.
Gunnulf has a face like Aunt Aashild’s. His hands are powerful. He both loves his brother and also confronts him “without mercy.”
Gunnulf will reappear in this story. The last time we see him he will be dressed like a friar, with the “sallow, lined visage of an old man, with a thin, sunken mouth and two big amber eyes set deep in his face.” Never in all these pages will he find the peace Kristin finds.
Brother Priest with a nod to W.B. Yeats He was new snow falling deeply in the night falling lightly in the day He lay prostrate before the Lord while others slept Priest of a good meal a holy book a board game a saga strung on a zither A brother who let his fortress dissolve into the ridge who let his castle go to the church who chose fists and the far north who left his brother’s embers smoldering He knew no peace but shed it like fresh snow Tread softly because you tread on his dreams –Megan Willome
P.S. In the latest
episode on Kristin, Sean mentioned the synchronicity between Brother Edvin’s glove at the beginning of the book and in this latest chapter. That’s what my poem “monk” is all about.Happy poeming!
Megan