This Is the Dream by Olav Hauge

This Is the Dream

by Olav Hauge

This is the dream we carry through the world

that something fantastic will happen

that it has to happen

that time will open by itself

that doors shall open by themselves

that the heart will find itself open

that mountain springs will jump up

that the dream will open by itself

that we one early morning

will slip into a harbor

that we have never known.

............................................

YOU MUST READ THIS:

"Olav Hauge was born in 1908 in Ulvik and he died there eighty-six years later.  As a younger son in in a traditional Norwegian family, he received virtually no land.  The older brother got the main farm, and Olav lived all his life on what he could produce from 3 acres of ground.  During his late 20's, he spent some time in a mental institution.  At 65, he married the Norwegian artist Bodil Cappelen, whom he met at one of his rare poetry readings.  He settled into married life very well, and the house cheered up considerably.  He died in the old way; no real evidence of disease was present.  He simply did not eat for ten days, and so he died.  People who attended his funeral, which took place down in the valley where he had been baptized as a child, describe a service full of feeling and gratitude.  A horse-drawn wagon carried his body back up the mountain after the service.  Everyone noticed a small colt that ran happily alongside its mother and the coffin all the way."

From the Preface by Robert Bly in "The Dream We Carry" by Olav H. Hauge.

I highly recommend this book.  The poetry is amazingly touching.