Tomas Tranströmer
Two poems translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane
Solitude
I
Right here, I was nearly killed one February evening.
The car skidded sideways on the glare ice
to the wrong side of the road. The oncoming cars—
their headlights—getting closer.
My name, my girls, my job
were quietly let go and left behind,
farther and farther away. I was as anonymous
as a boy surrounded by enemies in a schoolyard.
The oncoming traffic had enormous lights.
They shone on me as I steered and steered
in a transparent fear that floated like egg whites.
The seconds expanded—there was room in there—
they were as large as hospitals.
You could almost pause for a bit
and breathe easily
before being crushed.
Then something grabbed hold: a helpful grain of sand
or wonderful gust of wind. The car pulled free
and quickly lurched across the road.
A post shot up and snapped—a sharp clang—then
flew off into the darkness.
Until all was still. I stayed buckled in
and watched as someone came through the snow squall
to see what had become of me.
II
I’ve been walking around for a long time
in the frozen fields of Östergötland.
Not a single person in sight.
In other parts of the world
there are those who are born, live, and die
in a continuous crowd.
To always be visible—to live
in a swarm of eyes—
must lead to a certain facial expression.
A face coated with clay.
The murmuring rises and falls
while between them all, they divide up
the sky, the shadows, the sand grains.
I must be alone
ten minutes in the morning
and ten minutes at night. —Without a program.
Everyone stands in line for everyone.
Many.
One.
Out in the Open
1
Late autumn’s labyrinth.
At the entrance to the woods, a tossed-away bottle.
Go in. The woods are quiet, deserted rooms this time of year.
Just a few sounds: as if someone was gently moving twigs around with a pair of tweezers
or else a hinge was faintly creaking inside of a thick trunk.
Frost breathed on the mushrooms and they’ve shriveled up.
They look like objects and clothing found after someone’s disappeared.
Now dusk approaches. It’s all about getting out there
and finding your landmarks again: the rusted machinery out in the field
and the house across the lake, a reddish-brown block, dense as a bouillon cube.
2
A letter from America set me off, and drove me out
into a bright night in June on empty suburban streets
among newborn neighborhoods with no memories, chilly as blueprints.
The letter in my pocket. Miserable furious walking, it’s a kind of appeal.
For them, evil and good actually have faces.
For us, it’s mainly a struggle between roots, numbers, shades of light.
Those who run death’s errands don’t shun the light of day.
They govern from glass chambers. They swarm in the blinding sun.
They lean across the counter and turn their head.
Farther along, I happen to stop in front of one of the new facades.
Many windows all flowing together into a single window.
The evening light and wandering crowns of trees are captured there.
It’s a mirrored lake with no waves, raised up into the summer night.
Violence feels unreal
for a brief moment.
3
The sun blazes. The plane comes in low
and casts a shadow in the form of a large cross that rushes over the ground.
A man’s sitting in the field, rooting around.
The shadow arrives.
For a split second he’s in the center of the cross.
I’ve seen the cross hanging in the cool naves of churches.
Sometimes it looks like a quick snapshot
of something in violent motion