GRAVEYARD Poem by Steinar Opstad

You say that you will grow weak
if I touch you too much
and that I should take a step away
and around us there's no single person,
but whole crowds and groups
The sun shines in people's brains,
not on heaven
and the gravel paths are groundless

Her name was ‘Mother', you say,
not this name in delicate letters
Sorrow is overpraised and I say
"Let us go our own ways"
I read words like ‘angel' and ‘holy'
and later: a white sheet of paper
on which no name is listed, not your own
not your mother's, but mine
and I have been drawn in
as a figure: A son.