Splendid Be the Earth

Award-winning Swedish poet Mats Söderlund explores the changes in his local mountains, along with the grief of losing our natural places – encouraging us to save what's left. This book is a subtle, poetic and engaging call to action for us to reflect on our beloved landscapes, grieve for what we have lost, and save what is still left. Mats Söderlund first hiked to the Helags massif in 1976, aged eleven. In 2022, he could see how the glacier had shrunk. As he reflects on these changes to his local mountain range, he asks: how will humans mourn the ice? Through his poetic prose, Mats talks to people throughout Sweden who have a close connection to the landscape. He talks about reindeer herding, small farming, hunting, fishing and tourism. Included here are statements from scientists and natural historians, as well as texts by poets, philosophers and writers as they try to pin down these new feelings of "solastalgia" – distress caused by environmental change. The Nordic region is warming more quickly than the rest of the planet, and Mats shows us how an increase of 3°C actually looks and feels. Wet snow no longer crunches under the shoes… lakes aren't freezing for long enough to support those who depend on them... summer meadows are turning yellow. The losses we face today – not just ice caps and the sixth mass extinction, but also languages, cultures and professions – are happening at a speed that can make us blind to them. Mats wants to gently open our eyes and urge us to look at what we're losing – and to save what we can while there is still time. By remembering beloved landscapes in detail, we give ourselves the space to grieve for them.