By Jena Woodhouse.
The angels of fear, sorrow and death
stood by my side since the day I was born.
Edvard Munch
This is the house that Munch bought.
Its windows face the Oslo fjord,
whose waters quiver with midsummer’s
otherworldly midnight light.
As you see, a single bed— the linen
scrupulously white, betokening the house-
keeper’s sense of rectitude and pride.
This is the bed in which Munch died,
conscious, as he’d prophesied—
illuminer of inner life, truth-seeker
and anchorite.
Shadow of a bird on snow—
a raven: childhood tales of Poe.
