Church Song

[Lykren]

A bitter wind runs through that song
above a river filled with laughter and with fear,
sounds like pebbles glancing up from the very bottom.
The riffles die away into lake-like silence
as the singer shuts his mouth and sits
and leans against the wall with closed eyes,
blind now to his own foretelling.

The old crowd begins to shift and vanish,
they spurn the brightness and the unity.
Under an evening rigid and deep
they scatter, an element apart
that will not riot, nor keep calm,
but remain divided as the notes
that came with such regrettable force.