a sudden fear of coming home - Naja Marie Aidt

a sudden fear of coming home
like meeting up with a sect one has left
and what if one can’t hold out against them
I cook a Danish dish
and my sorrow sinks into the cream
it’s so contradictory
there are so many layers
now the phone rings
now I say Sorry? in English
then What did you say? in Danish
but in dreams the new language sneaks around and pushes at meanings
tiny words
secrets that only the initiated understand
yet the freedom
fluttering like a blade of grass in a storm
I am carried along
over prairie and plain and highland and sea
deep into the earth where sprouting seeds and crawling creatures have their ways
look there
I say
look
I’ve never seen that before
I say: my fear surprises me
I say: now I understand

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Naja Marie Aidt (born 1963) Greenland
Translated by Susanna Nied
Source: Columbia Journal