“When sauna-time comes / draw the water, bring the whisks.”
Runo 23, Kalevala
SAUNA
© Jane Piirto. All Rights Reserved
Our feet in buckets, we sit
on the top bench in a row.
The little kids sit
near the floor.
Mother throws löyly
on with the ladle.
Steam rushes from the rocks.
We sting.
We put noses in washcloths.
We talk and sweat.
The urgency takes
over our thumping hearts.
We run out barefoot,
leap in a group,
prance down the hill
through raspberry thorn,
dive, stumble, on pebbles,
flail in splashes.
The water receives us.
Our shouts and whoops
force us to relief,
to skin eskimo warm.
We glow in perfect awareness.
Cool, we climb the hill
to the sauna again,
soap up, wash each other’s backs,
run in lather to the lake,
and back again, this time,
this time for the real steam,
and back to our holy lake.
Then pop, rolls, cold cuts–
the ritual of our ancestors,
ruddy and calm.
Piirto, J. (1980, April). Sauna. Okooch Mt. News.
- (1981). Finnish Americana, IV, p. 69.
- (1983). M. Karni and A. Jarvenpa (Eds.), Finnish American Writers (p. 69). New Brighton, MN: Finnish Americana Press.
- (1983). Postcards From The Upper Peninsula. Pocasse Press.
- (1989). M. Karni and A. Jarvenpa (Eds.), Sampo: The Magic Mill (p. 180). Minneapolis, MN: New Rivers.
- (2008). Saunas: Poems by Jane Piirto. Woodstock, NY: Mayapple Press.
