It’s a long, long word, and it faces itself
It’s a long, long word, and it follows itself
It’s a long, long word, and it chases itself
It’s a long, long word, and it swallows itself

We spiral round the world as it tilts upon its pole
And scan the northern half of the green and navy sphere
Then as our interest grows, the mighty magnets roll
And we’re pulled in closing coils till the frosted lands appear.

Like sharply chiseled ice, our spear-headed eye
Relentless in its course, unshakable within,
Cuts through the freezing firs with an ancient homing cry
Past the land of the Lapps into the lap of our Finn…

Our warming senses warn us through his soft rotating song
Which occupies our friend, as he polishes his stone,
That his world is not so shiny, not so perfect, oddly wrong
And he tries to realign it as he sits and works alone.

His doctors cannot free him from a weakening condition
Which causes the compulsion to retain exact control
Over both sides of the body, so that pressure and position
Remain forever equal, balanced, just and whole…

He shapes the solid soapstone with his strong and practised fingers
And smooths the surface fondly with the other hand in time
Then he shifts his stance above it, deliberately lingers
And changes hands precisely, so the ritual will rhyme.

He drops his blade and swears, and retrieves it with his right
Then purposely repeats this with his left to feel complete
He rubs his tired eyes, both hands at perfect height,
And stretches with precision, level weight on even feet.

His weary spirit sighs each time his limbs fall out of stride
And the drive to keep his balance racks his heart, torments his brain
Yet he knows there’s some small element deeply stored inside
That links his craftsman’s name to the nature of his pain.

It’s a long, long word, and it faces itself etc

And so the mode continues as he wends his mirrored way
To the order of his home, symmetrically planned,
Where bewildered and exhausted by the rigours of the day
Our soapstone seller dines, passing foods from hand to hand.

His strange obsession fades as his heavy eyes roll back
And sleep in all her splendour brings her merciful release
Then our newly sharpened arrow travels deep in dreamy black
Through the turmoil of his thoughts, to a place of welcome peace.

He becomes the Vainamoinen, ancient father of the world
Whose body shaped the ocean floor, each chasm, reef and crease,
Whose eagle’s golden egg was shattered, seized and hurled
And the firmament created with each tiny, shiny piece.

Our traveller of the night becomes the spirit of the earth,
The sorcerer in his trance touching worlds beyond our scope,
He whispers with our forbears, shares their learning and their mirth
Returning with their knowledge and the certainty of hope.

Then off he flies again as the eagle’s gentle humming
From the spurs of every star to the bed of every tree,
The shaman who inhabits our creation’s rhythmic drumming
And he slides across the shores as the white snake of the sea.

The mighty Midgard Serpent, always present, ending never,
Orbiting the Earth, in eternal silver rings,
Shines out like a memor, Nordic symbol of Forever,
And our sleeping friend is conscious of his place amongst the kings.

It’s a long, long word, and it faces itself etc

Even as he sleeps, his mortal voice is chanting
Echoing in circles, like waves around our lands
And as his song gains speed, some coincidence is planting
The inkling of a journey over streaked and silvered sands.

A silent light that calls him from the darkened lowland skies
Lies somewhere in the centuries of layered stone he knows -
His safely trodden future hears those metamorphic cries
And his aching body yearns to find the rift where sorrow glows

Too soon the soothing moon slips behind the cruel sun
And our soapstone seller rises to the nightmare of his day.
His muddled mind is weak before his labour has begun
And we watch him lumber on in his strict compulsive way.

But surely there is someone who can help restore his pleasures -
Shall we ourselves search keenly as he sits like his own guest
And lead him to the elder who defends his family’s treasures
Whose empathetic insight might clarify his quest?

But word precedes our musings, carried by his caring kin,
And the older one approaches with an asymmetric gait.
Immediately he senses through the soapstone seller’s skin
The history of the ailment weighing down upon his fate.

“You’re striving to defy the messages inside you
Fighting to deny some predetermined course.
Your pain will never lessen till you let your oddness guide you
And lead you to your essence,” spoke the sage in oldest Norse.

It’s a long, long word, and it faces itself etc

“Something in the name, the calling of my trade
Is trapped inside the word and it whispers to my heart.
Help me free my trances from their nightly prison shade
And trace the silvered pathways with the sun upon my chart.”

We listen with our mason as the old one speaks in runes:
“King Uakivikau, brave explorer of the oceans,
Sailed towards his homeland, guided by the moons,
Impatient to embrace his perfect love’s devotion.

Queen Saippias, beautiful and pure,
Bejeweled by the white and silver snake around her waist
Sparkled like the pole star from the cliff above the shore
And waved with both her arms for her treasured king to haste.

No! The hanging rock beneath her feet begins to crumble
And he moves to shake the underworld, and fill the sky with sounds
Too late, his hands reach out as he sees his beauty tumble…
The raging seas engulf her, and our king in grief is drowned.”

We’re the swift and silky salmon that skims the upward brooks
The fearless flying goose that scores the frozen air
The livid lynx that scrambles up the slopes of racing rooks
The dashing of the elk and the charging of the bear

We’re the lightning in his eyes, the thunder in his ears
The fires beneath the ocean forcing anger through its crust
The baking of the stones through the terror of the years
Blasting, drenching, fusing, grinding, cooling rock to dust.

Our soapstone seller stumbles with the force of eastern gales
He twists his pounding heel and he buckles at the knee
But now the rich pain fuels him as he treads the coastal dales
And the quarried land emerges where the white stone meets the sea…

For a while he stops to ponder his acquaintance with the ocean
Tastes the salty grave where the ancient secrets swim
Breathes the very air, the sacred space in motion
As Uakivikau finds life again - in him.

And what of Saippias, moving softly with the tide,
Grown still below the waves, sinking deep beneath its tears
Trapped between the waters and the molten rocks inside
Transformed and smoothed by fire and ice and undulating years…?

His ankle weakens sharply and his laboured muscles ache
And reckless anger tears him with a wrenching from his awe
His bare hands plummet wildly and his solid powers quake
As his tragic sobbing echoes through the white caves on the shore.

For centuries from moving mines that reach above the bay
Our soapstone seller’s stock for generations hewed the stone
While trapped between its layers sweet serpentinite lay,
And left to weather quietly, slept its sister stone alone…

He rips along the snakestone like iron in a storm
As the elements inside him pare his hand into a knife
Then his frenzied heartbeat stills as he beholds the streamlined form
And the timeless winds rush through him as he lifts her into life…

Streaked with silver soft and white, elegant and pure…
“My serpentinite love, O my own infinity!
I’m whole again. I’ve found my soul! So sleep, my queen, no more.
Take my hand, embrace this perfect universe with me!”

We fly above the wonder and enchantment of the scene
As they softly ride in joy upon their ever-rolling streams,
Far above our soapstone King and Midgard Serpent queen
Through mirrored lands, united hands and palindromic dreams…