Torghatten (‘Square Hat’) is a wonder of nature. Our poet Colin Pink climbed its steep path in the summer heat, and picked wild cloudberries. Today is Day 554 of the daily poems.
Eating cloudberries on Torghatten
Torghatten rises from the North sea,
a Napoleonic hat, atop the head
of a stone giant immersed beneath
the Nordic waves. It’s the mountain
with the hole in the middle, so big,
one time a daredevil flew a plane through it.
The hole was eroded by the motion of water
long before we existed to behold it.
Now we strain our necks to gaze up
at the cathedral immensity of its space.
Massive, rugged, sun swept, Torghatten
looms over the archipelago like a whale
surrounded by little fish. And we are
just barnacles on its crust as we ascend
towards the sun. In July heat we clamber up,
over the granite rocks and skin thin layer of soil.
We are caressed by the light and air,
and the breeze gives us a sweet kiss.
As we climb we pick wild cloudberries
and eat them. The sun baked them on the bush;
the amber berries are hot in the mouth and taste
the way the cuisine in nature’s own kitchen should.
At the top, light-headed, the vista spreads
below us, a scattered jigsaw of land and sea;
the taste of wild cloudberries still on the tongue.
Colin Pink
from Colin Pink Acrobats of Sound, published by Poetry Salzburg Press, 2016