Chords for Two Paintings by Nikolai Astrup

_ _ [A] _ _ [D] _ _ [A] _ _
[Bm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ I know [A] no one now, _ _ _ no [Bm] I say [G] you.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Now after the ground has opened up, _ [A] now after you die,
I [G] wonder what [A] could [Bm] beacon me forward [G] into the rest of life.
_ _ [Bm] _
_ _ I can glimpse [A] occasional moments _ gleaming [G] like [A] bonfires,
burning from [G] across the fjord.
_ _ [A] _ [B] _ _ [Bm] _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [C#] _
_ _ _ [A] In a painting from around 1915 called Midsummer [D] Eve Bonfire
[A] by Nikolai Astrup that shines [Em] on my computer screen.
In [A] 2017, [D] in the awful July [A] night,
the house is finally quiet and still with a child asleep upstairs.
[D] So I sit and notice the painting [A] of bonfires on the [Em] hillside
and _ [A]
tanning [G] smoke _ _ in [A] the valley is wrapping back up through the fjords
[D] at dusk, hovering like [A] scarves of mist draped [Em] along the [A] ridges
above couples dancing in [D] the green twilight [A] around fires.
And in the water below, the reflections of other fires from [D] other parties
[A] illuminate the depth and glitter, [Em] _
shining [A] _ [G] and alone. _ _
Everyone [A] is laughing and there's music and a man climbs up the hill
[D] pulling a juniper bough [A] to throw into the [Em] fire
to make some sparks rise up to [A] join the stars.
These people in the painting believed in magic and earth
and they all knew loss _ [D] and they all came to the [A] fire.
_ [Em] I saw _ [A] _ _ [G] myself _ in this [A] one young woman in the foreground
with a look of desolation and [D] a body that looked pregnant.
[A] As she leaned against the moss [Em]-covered rocks off to the side,
[A] apart from all the people [D] celebrating Midsummer,
I [A] knew her person was gone, just like me.
And just like me, she looked across [D] at the fires from far away
and [A] wanted something in their life [Em] to say,
Live [A]
your _ [G] life.
And if you [A] don't, the ground is definitely ready at any [D] moment to open up again
to [A]
swallow you back in, [Em] to digest you [A] back into something useful [D] for somebody.
[A] And meanwhile, above all these Norwegians dancing in the twilight,
the permanent [D] white snow gleamed, [A] _ you used to [Em] call me Nash.
[A] _ [G] Later now, _ _ _ [A] the man who painted this girl's big black eyes,
gazing, [E] drawing the fire into herself, [A] standing alone, _ [Em] Nikolai Astrup.
[A] He also died young, [D] at 47, [A] right after finishing building his studio at home,
where he probably [D] intended to keep on painting his [A] resonant life into old age.
[Em] But sometimes [A] people get killed before they get to [G] finish all the things they were going to do. _ _ _ _
That's why I'm [A] not waiting around anymore.
_ [G]
That's why I tell you that I love you. _ _
_ _ Does [Bm] it even matter what we leave behind?
I'm [A] flying on an airplane over [C#] the Grand Canyon,
[G] imagining [D] strangers going through [A] the wreckage of this flight [G] if it were to crash. _
And would [Bm] anyone notice or care, gathering up my stuff from the [A] desert below?
Would they [G] investigate the last song I was listening to?
[D] Would they go through my phone and see the last picture I ever took
was of our sleeping daughter early [Bm] this morning, getting ready to go.
And I was struck by her [A] face, sweet in the blue light of our dim noon.
[G] _ Would they [Bm] follow the thread back and find her there?
_ _ _ _ _ _ I snap [A] back out of this plane [F#m] crash fantasy, [D] still alive,
[G] and I know [Bm] that's not how it would go.
I know the [G] actual mess that death leaves behind
just [Bm] gets bulldozed in a panic by the living,
pushed over the waterfall,
[D]
cause that's me now,
[G] holding all your things, resisting the inevitable
_ _ [Bm] flooding of the archives, the scraps distributed [B] by wind,
a life's work just left out in the [G] rain.
_ [A] But I'm doing what I can to [G] reassemble a poor substitute
version of you [Bm] made of the fragments and drawings that you left behind.
[A] I go through your diaries [D] and notebooks at [G] night.
_ [D] I'm still [Bm] cradling you [G] in me.
_ _ _ [Bm] _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ [C#] _ _ _ There's [A] another Nikolai Astrovich from [D] 1920,
gold fox [A] gloves that hangs on the fridge,
[Em] and I look at [A] it every morning, [D] every night before bed.
[A] _ Some trees have been cut down next to a stream
flowing through [D] a birch grove [A] in late spring,
and [Em] two girls that look like you [A] gather berries in [G] baskets
hunched over like young animals grazing
with their [A] red dresses against the white birch tree trunks,
[D]
interweaving beneath [N] the clatter of the wind. _ _ _ _ _
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