Winter Of Discontent Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The phone rang a day before Christmas a message I knew would come
but would not like to hear. Mother had died and there was a great haste
now before the festive season. Yet in my despair I picked up the phone
and rang her number in the hope it had all been a dreadful mistake…any
minute now she will answer be glad to hear my voice; and she would tell
me I’m susceptible to cold and remember to wear a scarf.
Fully awake I rushed to the airport, sorry fully booked till after Christmas.
“Please if there is a cancellation ring me.” The phone didn’t ring.
When I finally got there snow had covered flowers and her name was not
yet carved on a stone. This emptiness, this hole in my heart, I knew it had
to happen one day, but not now not ever. At her home they were busy
dividing her things. No I didn’t want anything only her reading glasses,
she had thought me how to read. A life had ended and for the first time in
my life I knew how it felt like to be alone under a cold Nordic sky.