on jo kaikki ruusut kukkineet.

Viime yönä kuuran kimalteet

ensi kerran kiilsi kattoin yllä.

Lähtee onnellisemmille maille

kesä tenhovoimin, luomistöin.

Surmaa halla harmain syksyöin

kaiken, joka nuoruutta jäi vaille.

Poissa kaikki laulajat on puiston,

poissa, paennehet etelään.

Tänne yksin istuen ma jään

varaan jonkun köyhän muiston.

Lähtee korkealla kurkein kuoro

yli kattoin ylhään vapauteen.

Päiväin pitkäin painoon uupuneen,

koska, koska lähteä on vuoro?



That was a prologue of his first, 1906 published collection called “Runoja” (Poems). His poems haven’t been very widely translated to English I think and I’m not going to start trying either. His lines are way too delicate and subtle for me to mutilate. Here’s a little background information of him in Finnish. History has placed him somewhat in the shadow of Eino Leino, hence the expression “second greatest”. The two poets had a bit of a rivalry going on back at their heyday, mostly generated by the press instead of the poets themselves, much in the same way that music press nowadays loves to create and then nurture artificial conflicts between pop bands.

I was aware that Koskenniemi wrote the lyrics to Finlandia Hymn but beyond that his works have remained unexplored to me, until one typically humid Spanish afternoon a few months ago when I was idly leafing through a magazine on the terrace back in Fuengirola. They have a publication called Olé-lehti there, for Finnish expats, designed to make life easier on foreign coast for people mostly on their “golden years”. Amidst the light and sunny articles of tanned and smiling people and various embarrassing columns struggling towards humorousness I spotted, very very out of place in that context, a columnist quoting some deeply chilling verse about Death sitting at the head of a table and the overall futility of, well, everything. Impressed by the bleak dark quality of this text I wrote down the author’s name, to examine his writings more closely in the future, in a more fitting location where the temperature isn't over 40 degrees celsius most of the time, effectively making any attempt at reading sombre things next to impossible.

When I got back to Finland I popped in at my local second hand bookstore and acquired a lovely 80 years old volume of V.A. Koskenniemi’s Collected Poems, for a ridiculously low sum of money. I haven’t found the particular poem about Death yet (the book has over 400 pages and one doesn’t gulp down collections of poems like one might gulp regular novels) but it doesn’t matter since there’s plenty of other verse filled with solemn beauty and sharp insight to enjoy. He was clearly a man of tremendous talent and vision. And his wife Vieno was part of the same family tree as my fiancée so naturally my poetic ambitions and abilities by this are enhanced and greatly underlined.

Or undermined.

Anyway, I plan on savouring slowly the fruits of his poesy on the cold and lightless months that lie ahead. As autumn leers behind the corner, graciously baring its’ fangs, only barely tolerating the last remaining sunny days, safe in the knowledge of things to come; Autumn, already impatient, vindictive and ferocious; Autumn, eager to usurp the throne and Reign with a capital R. I’ve never seen much good in this special season and the jewels it seems to grant to some people. How on earth is lesser amount of light and warmth in any way preferable to greater amount of light and warmth I fail to comprehend.  It’s like choosing canned beef over filet mignon, or pink t-shirt over black, or Exodus over Genesis.

But I can’t be bothered to complain. Whining and whinging won’t stop the autumn from arriving and sulking and moping about it probably won’t prevent the inevitable either. So bring it on, Autumn! I’m at least 25% better prepared than on most autumns past and my loins are fiercely girded. Bring it fucking on!