Hello, Poetry Friend
Welcome back to my occasional series, poeming my way through my heart book, Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter.
Lavrans, Kristin Lavransdatter’s father, deeply puzzles me. And I’m not the only one—other characters question why he’s so pious, why he is faithful to such a melancholy wife as Ragnfrid, why he doesn’t use his influence to better the country. Erlend respects him, and Simon will fight for him, but there is something odd, something (dare I say) queer about him. I don’t have a label for Lavrans, this man I can picture taking such good care of his beloved horses, losing children and loving children and fostering many others, even Arne.
Lavrans is a paragon of virtue, but also a person deeply wounded, who at one point admits, “He had never loved anyone.” Lavrans is respected, but has few friends, except among priests and holy men. He is most at home when he is outside: “he thrived best out in the wilderness—up on the mountain plateaus, where every living creature demands wide-open space, with room enough to flee.” He has too much of an emotional attachment to his daughter Kristin and not enough of one to Ragnfrid, until the last few months of his life—and their strange “new wedding night” is truly lovely, this love of “faithful friends” who lie in the dark, “their arms touching each other. After a moment they laced their fingers together.”
In my Texan imagination, Lavrans wears pressed Wranglers and a Resistol and knows every living creature from here to the border. Fella never misses church. He’s had a lot of sorrows, but you wouldn’t know that to talk with him over a Shiner and brisket. He’s good to that wife of his. He sure loves those daughters. Man throws one helluva party on holidays. He carves real nice too — you should see those birds he does. But he is kinda queer.
This poem first appeared at Project Redux.
What the River Laag Sang
He was a foreigner
come to Norway to make his fortune
He was a soldier
St. Thomas heard his wounded cry
He was a father
three boys, three girls, countless fosters
He was a storyteller
knew the entire troll lineage (or made it up)
He was a horseman
the love of his life — training colts
He was a husband
too young, too strange to love
He was a landowner
his word, respected by men
He was a follower of Christ
observed every fast
kept the forgotten creed
turned five white stones into a cross
carried the crucifix out of the fire
let the Savior’s sad face console him
He did not love his wife
— not until the end —
not the way he loved the wilderness
the forest-dwellers
all that lives unseen but sung
in the roar of the River Laag
– Megan Willome
Happy poeming!
Megan
Ahhh, Lavrans. What a complicated character, as all the best ones are.