Afterwards lies in the meadow

Afterwards adds day to day,

but Before sits unchallenged

in its truth,

which we hold in fragments

from our human perception,

for we have not sneaked through dewy grass

along the ditch edges of our wide territory,

or unseen, far out into the secrets of high summer,

in waving fields or under the birch & pine of bird-chick groves,

or sat motionless by some rodent's autumn hole,

or listened by vole tunnels under late winter’s snow;

and we have not lived so much of our lives

from this ground- & floor-level perspective

Before sits on its throne

in our minds;

King Before, about 17 years,

with a diffuse, indistinct beginning,

unknown origin,

and an absolute and instantaneous transition

into its Afterwards

Before ends abruptly,

and the slow Afterwards of eternity begins

at the animal clinic in Luleå on June 18, 2024,

where the two opposites meet in an injection needle

surrounded by sobs

Before is the memories of beloved Gunwald.

Afterwards is the wild poisoning of grief,

which slowly, week by week,

from June 18, 2024, onwards,

very slowly turns into painful acceptance

and a grayer, heavier time,

with scattered outbreaks of profound insight

King Before is the name of the time we were given

with beloved Gunwald

I bow to King Before,

swear him my loyalty

and thank him for the years with the beloved,

but Afterwards lies in the meadow

and never ends

So far I refuse

to fully accept this continued, eternal non-ending

It must not be so

It cannot be so

But it is so

Afterwards is a dirge, a saga, a poetic work

that Time inscribes through us and onwards,

behind our downcast eyes, horizonless,

but down in the meadow lie its insignia, its proofs,

in a box half a meter down in the earth,

and up in the house I still have all the reactions left:

When I open the front door and step into the hallway

my body feels the cat around my legs and feet,

and the ears hear his particular welcoming meow;

just a moment of untruth,

until reason dismisses the reflexes

- and if I open a can of mackerel in the kitchen

my senses expect the eager one

jumping down from the armchair in the living room,

running through the hall into the kitchen,

hoping for a bit of sauce

to lick from the emptied can,

which I placed by his food bowl;

my body’s momentary, merciful untruth,

- and if I lie on my back on the sofa

in the living room

my habitual body prepares

for the warm, furry friend’s leap up,

and his trampling paws on my stomach,

before he lies down close under my face

and purrs,

but in a moment I dismiss my body’s hope

for beloved Gunwald,

and it rushes with longing and persistent disbelief

on the 21st day of eternity’s Afterwards