change the meaning of words 
the long O in MOR becomes a cuddly 
word for mom, while short vowels 
as in MORRA onomatopoetic us
quickly outside to the growling 
hedgehog mama whose eight
babies fell half a meter into the space
around our basement window. 
Under curling blue wisteria 

as poisonous as the blue moon
it calls, I kneel hoping for two long 
vowels PÅ KNÄ since the short KNÄCKA 
means to break something hard like a bone 
or the shell of a walnut. My mother’s 
walnut tree leans against the horizon 
twice as tall as the house including our
chimney, SKORSTEN, which combines 
short and long vowels, where the short

shores up a building and the long one
weighs it down like a boulder or anchor
not unlike any woman raising children
pulling them up and pushing them down
but I grab a garland branch of the blue
rain and scour out dirt and spider webs,
my hand a holy cup slowly reaching
with every vowel short or long
lifting the soft-quilled hoglets home.