DRAGON RIVER

DRAGON RIVER (in the little gorge (juvet) that goes through Flatdal)
11th June 2011. Margaret Ann Waddicor.

I can see this as the Dragon of the river charging down, 
shaking all its water off as it goes, and bellowing, 
snorting waterfalls at each descent, flowers 
growing in the rocks on the side, a kind of saxifrage-family flower, 
vibrating with excitement, they are something like virgins 
or wedding veils in name in Norwegian. 

And then snaking its way through the many boulders, making 
the familiar bubbles, and decorating its dance hall with caught 
grasses and reeds on the stems in the way. Colouring the pebbles
and rocks with lichens, those beautiful maps, against the already 
pink granite; brown like bears in the deeper parts.

Tamed, as it reaches Seljordsvatten, the great blue grey lake
that lies to the south of Skorve mountain;
sleekly sneaking its passage now through meadows
full of wild flowers and cud chewing sheep and cattle,
licking the glacial rocks with its dark tongue,
or wetting the eyes of fish and eels, eventually meeting
the mythical snake, the Sjoeormen of the deep
comparable to Scotland's Lochness Monster.

Here it lies low, silently roaming the depths, only occasionally
rising up to scare the people in their wooden houses, along the shores,
and then the story starts again as it leaves the far end of the waters,
and follows the flow down through this big county of Telemark,
to finally reach the wilds of the ocean and join the dragon's of
the Skaggerak and the Kattegat just north of the land of Denmark.