Mother Fjord

You were a loving embrace throughout our childhood. You almost surrounded the village and were visible, wherever we found ourselves. You were silent, and you were rushing, depending on what mood you were in. As if you had an appointment with the wind. You smiled challenging when you showed teeth, and you smiled like a nursing mother when you were calm, and mirrored the horizon landscapes with its heads downwards.

When the sun glittered in your lazy ripples, everything was good.

Wooden poles with yarn underwater stood targeted, and showed the fishermen where the fish should be harvested early in the mornings and motor boats, kayaks and some flat-bottomed barges, which was good to transporting the wooden poles, you carried safe and secure on your surface.

Because you were always there, many kids could swim before they were eight. They didn’t give that much thought, it was just a matter of course. And eel, flounder, a trout among, crabs in abundance and different kinds of very small fish living in bustling community under your surface.

On the surface you changed your appearance as the wind blew, but you were not superficial. You had great depths, which seemed unfathomable. At the coast you allowed the children to paddle and play, and they caught the various miniature fish in jars.

In winter, you learned us to skate. For your smiles froze when the cold took hold. Then you could carry a lot and did it well.

You’re still humming the same tune as then. The children are now elder people, the houses in the village are partially modified and new ones obtained. Only some of the old trees still exist, many are newer generations.

Also brand new people have come, people who didn’t knew you as you were. But they will learn to know you as you are now and you have apparently not changed in the slightest.

The new generations can’t bathe in the same water we bathed in, even though it might look like they do. Because even if you apparently have not changed on the surface, you have renewed you so many times, you’d think it was a lie.

In a living fjord you can’t swim in exactly the same water more than once.