Work Text:
Sing, lament for Suovesi.
Once upon a sunlit valley,
tucked within the wooded valley
lived a home for scores of children,
homeland far away from homeland,
tiny world of joy in summer,
waxing, waning with the seasons.
Memories were its foundation,
soaring trees its staves and rafters,
songs its walls and dreams its roof-tiles,
built by many generations'
worth of hands and storytelling.
Long ago its early founders,
those who laid that first foundation,
looked on rushes by the lakeshore,
sinking in the muddy lakeshore:
as their home stood by the water,
thus for Bogwater they named it,
thus they named it Suovesi.
Sing, lament for Suovesi.
There where children made their dwelling,
took their hopes and wild believing
far beyond the mountain sunset
into dark of unknown nighttime,
hushed and yet alive with wonder,
humming with countless cicadas,
misted with the dawning twilight -
there the strength of dreams unfettered
crafted, summer after summer,
something more than wooded valley,
more than bunk or muddy lakeshore,
unknowable yet familiar
as the songs passed down for decades,
held a close and hard-won secret
and yet known by all the children
who had birthed it in believing.
Magic lived in Suovesi,
magic of the ancient forest,
worked in art and play and singing,
seen beyond the veil of dreaming,
power to reveal and shelter
soaked into the valley's landscape
and the joys and rites of summer,
precious gift of woods and forebears,
unseen heart of Suovesi.
Sing, lament for Suovesi.
Sing a dirge for woods and forebears,
elegy for
metsientaika,
requiem for
lapsien koti.
Sing of sunlit peace, but also
sing that we may long remember
why those children feared the darkness
even as they dreamed within it,
what the flashlights and cicadas
challenged, but could never vanquish.
Sing the simple truths of nature:
with all dreams must come the nightmares;
those who seek may mourn the finding;
those who prophesy disaster
may, in fending off disaster,
draw disaster closer to them;
lands within the realms of magic
never keep their peace unthreatened;
when a child imagines magic,
good and evil both can wield it;
when a child believes in magic,
so they must believe in monsters.
Sing, lament for Suovesi.
Sing the tragedy that followed
on the heels of
metsientaika.
Sing the death and aimless malice
that descended on the valley,
fear and discord twisting friendship,
hatred twisting joy and laughter,
all the awful nameless nightmares
dreamed along with
metsientaika
come without regard or caring,
mieletön, rakkaudeton,
come to poison valley's landscape,
tear down joys and rites of summer,
burn the woods and kill the forebears,
rot the heart of Suovesi.
Summer's horror shook the homeland.
What was once a place of safety
turned to constant, creeping terror,
turned to desperate shards of safety
wrested dearly from the monster,
bought with lakes of blood and grieving.
From the homeland's firm foundation
memories decayed, eroded,
swept away in tainted water.
From the once-strong staves and rafters
soaring trees cried out in anguish,
forest mired in spite and corpses,
quiet refuge now no longer.
From the walls the songs fell silent;
from the roof-tiles dreams turned deadly,
in the fog and mud ensnaring,
sinking in Unelmajärvi.
Sing, lament for Suovesi.
Sing for
vahva
Suovesi,
taian koti, lapsien koti,
unelman ja uskon koti.
Sing, remember Suovesi -
and rewrite the song in singing,
change the tale of
metsientaika,
strike a chord, strike out the ending,
strike to sunder death and malice,
strike a blow to kill a monster.
We sang then, for Suovesi.
Facing down the summer's monster,
facing an immortal horror
bent on doom and bent on ruin
for the sake of ruin only,
floor beneath our feet unsteady,
walls and staves and rafters broken,
roof torn off, cast into darkness,
nothing left between the children
and the beast, save us, defiant -
we sang then, for Suovesi.
We refused to leave the children.
We refused to bow to horror.
We refused to break or falter
in our song of strength in summer,
voices raised, a sounding chorus
built like
vahva
Suovesi,
piece by piece from other homelands
learning all to sing together,
all diverse yet all close-bonded,
fists and axe, guitar and firebrand,
metsientaika
crafted, chanted,
coming all to sing together,
sing to strike out monster's telling,
sing to keep the tale from ending,
sing the song we all had written,
sing the song of Suovesi.
I sing now for Suovesi
as we sang to fight the monster:
to remember what we gave up
for the sake of Suovesi,
so that we of Suovesi
do not let them die forever,
do not let the monster take them
in that final death, forgetting.
While the song of Suovesi
still is sung around the campfire,
while the land of Suovesi
echoes back their names and stories
from the sides of sunlit valley,
from the lake and field and mountain,
horror cannot win them from us;
even death cannot divide us;
tiedämme, muistamme,
Suovedessä laulamme,
they have not been lost to malice,
they are with us, now and always.
Sing, lament for Suovesi.
Sing for bygone days of childhood,
ours and others', all the children
forced to watch as summer's horror
tore apart their forest homeland,
what they knew as Suovesi.
Sing, lament for Suovesi -
then return to Suovesi,
what remains of Suovesi
tucked within the sunlit valley,
there where children made their dwelling.
Sing the simple truths of nature:
from each end come new beginnings;
flowers grow in wake of wildfire;
no song dies that yet has singers;
all in cycle after cycle,
waxing, waning with the seasons,
joining, parting, growing, dying,
nature spins its path forever.
Sing with me for Suovesi,
what was lost from Suovesi
and what grows now in the ashes,
something different, something new;
as I sing I make this story
more immortal than the monster;
as you sing of Suovesi,
Suovesi lives in you.