Kuppern on Skates at Squaw Valley

I also won a prize on skates, I was
number four in a schoolrace
when I was eight, after Leiv, he won.
But they had steel skates,
and I had only iron.
I had bought mine at a watchmaker's,
and I took those
with the big curlicues.

And now in Squaw Valley
Kuppern is winning on skates!
I hadn't planned on the 10,000 meter,
but the words take on a wilder tone
and my mother takes
a fiercer grip on her walking stick.

                   Translated by Robert Bly
       (Text of the poem in the original Norwegian)

I Pass the Arctic Circle

A man on the train points out the cairn on the mountain.
We're passing the Arctic Circle, he says.
At first we don't see any difference,
to the north the land looks the same,
but we know where we're headed.
I wouldn't have noticed this little event
if I hadn't, one of these days, passed seventy.

                   Translated by Robert Hedin
       (Text of the poem in the original Norwegian)