1962 (K4 in Umeå) Poem by Gunnar Harding

We were here to defend this forest
and become a part of this green
that our tents and uniforms clumsily mimicked.
The forest would not be fooled.
Spruce branches slapped us in the face when we rode past,
tree trunks scraped against our knees.
If someone fell out of the saddle he inevitably landed
with his back on a pine root.

In the winter we dressed up as snow.
To be invisible and then deadly
was the point.
To obliterate ourselves
so we could later obliterate others.
The green forest wouldn't acknowledge us.
The white snow did not love us.
We were Norrland's last dragoons.
Dressed in white, snowblind, camouflaged as snow
we guarded a whiteness
we would never be part of
in the country from Tavelsjö to Täfteå.

Translated from the Swedish by Roger Greenwald