I met an old man in Bergen,
Both of us trekking over the mountains,
At the start of the grey season.
“Pretty foggy, huh?" I said. “And damp cold."
“Now lies the real danger here," the old man said, with an unfaltering voice despite weather and age,
“For the real climbers," he added.
“Sometimes I wish I could do this more often," I said.
“Then you’ll need some guidance," he replied.
Up and down we went.
I learned from the old man how to disturb nothing on the way.
With safety. With dignity.
Avoid the dark soil. That’s where all the weakness were laid.
Step beside the stream. You always found a right rock for you to step on.
Follow the cairns. They stood out even in the greyest days.
We reached at a cliff top. It’s one o’clock.
We rested and ate lunch,
He told me a story, old as the rock lying beneath:
The hunter prepared himself for the upcoming danger.
He positioned himself carefully, as a prey,
Ahead of the blinding mist,
Almost out of sight, but
Always within reach for a big, mossy hand.
Of the mighty troll.
The troll breathed a deep, damp breath.
Filling up every crevice of the stone piles built by the hunter,
Trapping all the colors of the summer bright, but
Not the colors in the hunter’s eyes.
He stood firmly on the slippery cliff side,
Before the towering shadow
Covered him up from head to toes.
The hunter made sure no help was coming.
He fought the best fight of his life, satisfied.
“It’s time," he thought.
He ran towards the wall of mist at the end of the cliff, the troll lunged forward.
So both they fell, down the cliff, into nowhere.
“Well it’s truly a nowhere," people said.
“Beyond the cliff. Beyond the land.
That’s where lives end."
The ground shook. The sky swayed.
Down the rain poured. Three months nonstopped.
Rocks remained. Paths gone.
But it always had the saying:
That one was dead. One survived.
“But who survived?" I exclaimed.
“Well it’s obvious who survived," he replied thoughtfully. He pointed forward.
Now we sit on the cliff edge, looking down the valley.
And all the way down there,
There stood one more cairn, tiny as a raindrop,
Right next to two enormous lakes
“And you can see a bridge over the lake," the old man said, with a thought-provoking tone.
“Where two lakes connect. Almost like a neckless on the neck."
The mist got dense when we reached down to the bridge,
Lying across a waterfall between the lakes.
I turned around to ask the old man if he needed help.
But he’s gone. Nowhere to be seen.
Only the cairn lying there.
Like a tall soldier on duty of the wild glacial mountains.
River on Baltic Sea 
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