Tags
A Doll's House, Bernick, Doll's House, Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen, Master Builder, Nora, Norway, Pillars of Society, Solness, Truth
Break me the way, you heavy hammer,
To the deepest bottom of my heart.
Poem by Henrik Ibsen, on his Tombstone
The whir of fan,
the ticking clock,
My breathing, my heartbeat.
There is something
Pulling toward loneliness,
Stopped short by a good book.
The Complete Works of Ibsen.
I follow Nora through the door,
Oswald to death,
Karsten Bernick to truth.
I rush to keep up
With Solness, the Master Builder,
As he clambers the scaffold
To the tower’s highest spot,
Wreath in hand, dizzy, forgetting
He is destined to fall.
How intimate, to descend alongside
These haunted souls,
Hearts and motives exposed,
Laid out for me to judge or pity or pardon,
Or none of the above.
The truth of it fills my need
To hear true words spoken,
Even if only in my head.
Break the way, hammer.
Heavy hammer, break the way.