Rita Dove has a wonderful poem titled simply "Ö." The title of my poem below seems elaborate by comparison: "Őland." Poets are notoriously imperfect at interpreting their own poems, so with that caveat, I'll just note that I think the writing of this one came from a seam or crevice that many if not most poets explore, where the mysterious connections between land and language (and "land" is language) seem to reside.
On a more basic but still poetic topic, I'll mention that, to English-speakers, the Swedes refer to the commercial trip from Sweden to Őland as "the booze cruise," a nice rhyme.
The people who live on these island consider themselves, culturally, to be and, linguistically, are Swedish. When Russia "annexed" Finnland, it grabbed Åland, too, and when Finnland became independent again, Őland stayed with Finnland, at least officially.
* * *
Őland
(the group of island east of Sweden)
We sail past rocks. Glaciers rubbed
them round, so the story goes—round
heads of old monks, slick heads of seals
sleeping on black boulder-islands.
We’re sailing to a land that belongs
to water, a semi-nation of Swedes
governed by Finns, its very-own flag
whipped by unconquered winds.
Three old Swedish men, drinking beer
this early morning, mutter
stories of boats, ships, water, and things
that go wrong. “Panama,” they say.
And “Gävle.” “Titta,” they say: Look,
and we pass the rocks past Őland.
The rocks pass us, looking. Things can’t
go wrong with rocks but can go
wrong on them. White swans
fly by. Earth never stops whirling—
so the story goes. “Ibland,” the men
say. Sometimes.
Å is oh, and oh is water. In Waterland, land
becomes a sought-after afterthought:
“Oh. . . . Land.” Ibland. Åland. Őland.
