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We'd been walking so far, |
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Where the houses lean together, |
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On cobblestones not made for my high heels. |
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As we drifted along, |
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Slowed down by the weather, |
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No need to talk |
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About the way that summer feels. |
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We went into a doorway |
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To a run-down bar beneath the ground, |
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To a place that the sun has never been. |
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Coming in from the day |
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To the darkness and the shadows, |
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The feeble lights could not dispel the gloom. |
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Slowly making our way, |
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We found an empty table. |
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The winter seemed to live inside this room. |
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This Copenhagen cavern: |
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A run-down bar beneath the ground, |
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A place that the sun has never seen. |
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Like a frail figurine, |
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She walked between the tables |
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With a vacant look and thinly braided hair. |
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She was all of sixteen, |
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Straight from a Dickens fable, |
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She was pleading for some money |
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For her fare. |
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The Copenhagen waiter |
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Wanted her back on the street, |
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But some impulse |
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Made us offer her a chair. |
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As I started to speak |
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I sensed a strong emotion. |
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She said I am from northern Norway, too, |
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She had come for a week, |
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A journey with her school friends |
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But a year had passed her by |
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Before she knew. |
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She said: I come from Senja, |
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A village on the outer coast, |
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But the climate here |
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Affected me much more. |
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Walking into the lane, |
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Looking back in through the window, |
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The light of day now seemed a little strange. |
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Would she leave for the train, |
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Would she stay another winter? |
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She moved betweeen the tables |
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Begging chance. |
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We'd been walking so far |
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Through cobblestone back alleys |
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No need to talk about |
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The way that summer feels. |
