32 responses to “Foreign tongues”

1. This is exquisitely drawn, Bjorn! I love the “greens of woodlands” and the sound of blackbirds singing. Especially resonate with; “as I sense a string of words spreading from the soil from toes to limbs and further on into my veins.” 🩷🩷

   • Sometimes I can just feel all those different ways we my sing

     • Yes 🙂

2. Oh, I love the mystical notes you strike, the connection to voices past and the natural world that still harbors their footsteps,

   “the path
   depressed in soil
   by the countless pilgrims
   who came before.”

   I wonder the same about those pilgrims.

   • It is a mystery really what we can do by simply walking and walking.

3. The path in your photo is similar to a path I like to take, Björn, although there are no mountains around here, and I’m familiar with the blackbird’s song – it never seems to cease in our garden. I also know that walking without a thought, and I love the thought of the countless pilgrims who walked the path before – like walking in their footsteps or ghosts in the soil.

   • I think it’s their voices I hear.

4. An interesting view of those well trodden walking trails. I like to believe each of those pilgrims and folks in the past have left an imprint in the soil and path.

   • The paths that form themselves is such an interesting artifact of the present and the past.

5. I love the words absorbed from the soil through your feet into your veins..certainly a different language….

   • It’s the history of those who walked before us.

6. A path beaten by summers past is alive with the dead and made resonant by the living — well traveled here.

   • It is how I like to travel the most.

7. “I walk my feet without a thought” – it works so well this line even without the comma

   So much history imprinted in these footsteps – you and the blackbird, tongues foreign to each other yet both understood

   • Thank you… I had originally thought a comma, but with a line-break I get the same I think

8. What a beautiful , contemplative walk! Thanks for taking the readers along and feeling connected to the pilgrims.

   • I think this is how humans should travel, paths are the best connection to the past that exist.

9. Everything I ever enjoyed was on forest walks in Finland, and the Alps & perhaps here and there sometimes. The forests in Finland are magnificent, perhaps very similar to Sweden, and the experience is never disappointing. The blackbirds…well, maybe the Beatles knew….I certainly miss the daily experience: a tree must be made well to grow in such an environment, and you can feel it.

   • I think the forests has a very calming effect, and those paths I find amazing in the way they have been formed (sometimes over centuries)

10. Love the “tongues not even blackbirds comprehend”!

    • Alas I do not understand blackbirds either

11. Hi Bjorn, this is a great take on the prompt. A lovely poem.

    • Thank you

12. mmmm, i love to hike! how lucky you are to have such a beautiful path to walk. lovely poem, bjorn– interesting to think of those that walked before us. xx, ren

    • It is actually a quite new research to try to understand the way and why those paths are where they are.

      • that makes them all the more fun to explore!!

13. I enjoyed this a lot and feel like you really did show feelings “colored by the emotion of the moment”
    and the worn paths reminded me of how I used that analogy when teaching students about neural pathways and how we strengthen some with learning and memorizing – and how we can LOSE neural pathways that way too – and so paths no longer used might have growth cover them at some point.
    oh and not to be too chatty here, but I had Covid in Nov of 2021 and when I was feeling better, around day 6, I knew it was time to get moving – my husband took me on a slow walk in an old battle site – where the trail was well worn – and your oart “my
    feet without a thought
    finds the path”
    brought me right back to that very memorable walk in my life.

14. You took me with you on your walk. I particularly love your beautiful conclusion.

15. Beautiful, Bjorn. I think you captured the emotion of the moment brilliantly.

16. Your description of the place is perfect but the ars poetica of describing the words seeping into and forming a song within you is even more special Björn…

17. A visceral poem, Björn! It’s a poem I hear in my brain and feel in my body.

18. “as I sense a string of words
    spreading from the soil
    from toes to limbs and further on
    into my veins.”

    I can see this.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.