Prison
Eleven-a-side
sudden dismay—the ball’s gone
right over the wall.
•
More noise than need be
just to startle time into
getting a move on.
•
Wrongly spelled, those lives—
loveliness remains, the way
tattoo-marks remain.
•
When the runaway
was caught he’d gathered pockets-
ful of chanterelles.
•
Din from the workshops
and the watchtower’s heavy steps
perplexed the forest.
•
The tall doors swing back.
We’re inside the prison yard
in a new season.
•
The wall lamps are lit—
the night-flier sees a smudge
of unreal brightness.
•
An enormous truck
rumbles past at night. The dreams
of inmates tremble.
•
The boy drinks milk and
sleeps securely in his cell,
a mother of stone.
THE HALF-FINISHED HEAVEN
DEN HALVFÄRDIGA HIMLEN
1962
• I •
The Couple
They switch off the light and its white shade
glimmers for a moment before dissolving
like a tablet in a glass of darkness. Then up.
The hotel walls rise into the black sky.
The movements of love have settled, and they sleep
but their most secret thoughts meet as when
two colors meet and flow into each other
on the wet paper of a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent. But the town has pulled closer
tonight. With quenched windows. The houses have approached.
They stand close up in a throng, waiting,
a crowd whose faces have no expressions.
The Tree and the Sky
There’s a tree walking around in the rain,
it rushes past us in the pouring grey.
It has an errand. It gathers life
out of the rain like a blackbird in an orchard.
When the rain stops so does the tree.
There it is, quiet on clear nights
waiting as we do for the moment
when the snowflakes blossom in space.
Face to Face
In February living stood still.
The birds flew unwillingly and the soul
chafed against the landscape as a boat
chafes against the pier it lies moored to.
The trees stood with their backs turned to me.
The deep snow was measured with dead straws.
The footprints grew old out on the crust.
Under a tarpaulin language pined.
One day something came to the window.
Work was dropped, I looked up.
The colors flared. Everything turned around.
The earth and I sprang toward each other.
Ringing
And the thrush blew its song on the bones of the dead.
We stood under a tree and felt time sinking and sinking.
The churchyard and the schoolyard met and widened into each other like two streams in the sea.
The ringing of the church bells rose to the four winds borne by the gentle leverage of gliders.
It left behind a mightier silence on earth
and a tree’s calm steps, a tree’s calm steps.
Through the Wood
A place called Jacob’s Marsh
is the summer day’s cellar
where the light sours to a drink
tasting of old age and slums.
The feeble giants stand entangled
closely—so nothing can fall.
The cracked birch molders there
in an upright position like a dogma.
From the bottom of the wood I rise.
It grows light between the trunks.
It is raining over my roofs.
I am a waterspout for impressions.
At the edge of the wood the air is warm.
Great spruce, turned away and dark
whose muzzle hidden in the earth’s mold
drinks the shadow of a shower.
November with Nuances of Noble Fur
It is the sky’s being so grey
that makes the ground begin to shine:
the meadows with their timid green,
the plowed fields dark as black bread.
There is the red wall of a barn.
And the acres under water
like shining rice paddies in an Asia—
the gulls stand there reminiscing.
Misty spaces deep in the woods
chiming softly against each other.
Inspiration that lives secluded
and flees among the trees like Nils Dacke.
• II •
The Journey
In the underground station.
A crowding among placards
in a staring dead light.
The train arrived and collected
faces and portfolios.
Darkness next. We sat
in the carriages like statues,
hauled through the caverns.
Restraint, dreams, restraint.
In stations under sea level
they sold the news of the dark.
People in motion sadly
silently under the clock dials.
The train carried
outer garments and souls.
Glances in all directions
on the journey through the mountain.
Still no change.
But nearer the surface a murmuring
of bees began—freedom.
We stepped out of the earth.
The land beat its wings
once and became still
under us, widespread and green.
Ears of corn blew in
over the platforms.
Terminus—I
followed on, further.
How many were with me? Four,
five, hardly more.
Houses, roads, skies,
blue inlets, mountains
opened their windows.
C Major
When he came down to the street after the rendezvous
the air was swirling with snow.
Winter had come
while they lay together.
The night shone white.
He walked quickly with joy.
The whole town was downhill.
The smiles passing by—
everyone was smiling behind turned-up collars.
It was free!
And all the question marks began singing of God’s being.
So he thought.
A music broke out
and walked in the swirling snow
with long steps.
Everything on the way toward the note C.
A trembling compass directed at C.
One hour higher than the torments.
It was easy!
Behind turned-up collars everyone was smiling.
Noon Thaw
The morning air delivered its letters with stamps that glowed.
The snow shone and all burdens lightened—a kilo weighed just 700 grams.
The sun was high over the ice hovering on the spot both warm and cold.
The wind came out gently as if it were pushing a pram.
Families came out, they saw open sky for the first time in ages.
We found ourselves in the first chapter of a very gripping story.
The sunshine stuck to all the fur caps like pollen on bees
and the sunshine stuck to the name WINTER and stayed there till winter was over.
A still life of logs on
the snow made me thoughtful. I asked them:
“Are you coming along to my childhood?” They answered “Yes.”
In among the copses there was a murmuring of words in a new language:
the vowels were blue sky and the consonants were black twigs and the speech was soft over the snow.
But the jet plane curtsying in its skirts of noise
made the silence on earth even stronger.
When We Saw the Islands Again
As the boat draws near
a sudden downpour blinds it.
Quicksilver shot bounces on the water.
The blue-grey lies down.
The sea’s in the cottages too.
A stream of light in the dark hallway.
Heavy steps upstairs
and chests with newly ironed smiles.
An Indian orchestra of copper pans.
A baby with eyes all at sea.
(The rain starts disappearing.
The smoke takes a few faltering steps
in the air above the roofs.)
Here comes more
bigger than dreams.
The beach with the hovels of elms.
A notice with the word CABLE.
The old heathery moor shines
for someone who comes flying.
Behind the rocks rich furrows
and the scarecrow our outpost
beckoning the colors to itself.
An always-bright surprise
when the island reaches out a hand
and pulls me up from sadness.
From the Hilltop
I stand on the hill and look across the bay.
The boats rest on the surface of summer.
“We are sleepwalkers. Moons adrift.”
So say the white sails.
“We slip through a sleeping house.
We gently open the doors.
We lean toward freedom.”
So say the white sails.
Once I saw the wills of the world sailing.
They held the same course—one single fleet.
“We are dispersed now. No one’s escort.”
So say the white sails.
• III •
Espresso
The black coffee they serve outdoors
among tables and chairs gaudy as insects.
Precious distillations
filled with the same strength as Yes and No.
It’s carried out from the gloomy kitchen
and looks into the sun without blinking.
In the daylight a dot of beneficent black
that quickly flows into a pale customer.
It’s like the drops of black profoundness
sometimes gathered up by the soul,
giving a salutary push: Go!
Inspiration to open your eyes.
• IV •
The Palace
We stepped in. A single vast hall,
silent and empty, where the surface of the floor lay
like an abandoned skating rink.
All doors shut. The air grey.
Paintings on the walls. We saw
pictures throng lifelessly: shields, scale-
pans, fishes, struggling figures
in a deaf-and-dumb world on the other side.
A sculpture was set out in the void:
in the middle of the hall alone a horse stood
but at first when we were absorbed
by all the emptiness we did not notice him.
Fainter than the breathing in a shell
sounds and voices from the town
circling in this desolate space
murmuring and seeking power.
Also something else. Something darkly
set itself at our senses’ five
thresholds without stepping over them.
Sand ran in every silent glass.
It was time to move. We walked
over to the horse. He was gigantic,
dark as iron. An image of power itself
abandoned when the princes left.
The horse spoke: “I am The Only One.
The emptiness that rode me I have thrown.
This is my stable. I am growing quietly.
And I eat the silence that’s in here.”
Syros
In Syros harbor leftover cargo steamers lay waiting.
Prow by prow by prow. Moored many years since:
CAPE RION, Monrovia.
KRITOS, Andros.
SCOTIA, Panama.
Dark pictures on the water, they have been hung away.
Like toys from our childhood that have grown to giants
and accuse us
of what we never became.
XELATROS, Pireus.
CASSIOPEIA, Monrovia.
The sea has read them through.
But the first time we came to Syros, it was at night,
we saw prow by prow by prow in the moonlight and thought:
What a mighty fleet, magnificent connections.
In the Nile Delta
The young wife wept over her food
in the hotel after a day in the city
where she saw the sick creep and huddle
and children bound to die of want.
She and her husband went to their room.
Sprinkled water to settle the dirt.
Lay on their separate beds with few words.
She fell in a deep sleep. He lay awake.
Out in the darkness a great noise ran past.
Murmurs, tramping, cries, carts, songs.
All in want. Never came to a stop.
And he sank in sleep curled in a No.
A dream came. He was on a voyage.
In the grey water a movement swirled
and a voice said: “There is one who is good.
There is one who can see all without hating.”
• V •
A Dark Swimming Figure
About a prehistoric painting
on a rock in the Sahara:
a dark swimming figure
in an old river which is young.
Without weapons or strategy,
neither at rest nor quick,
and cut from his own shadow
gliding on the bed of the stream.
He struggled to make himself free
from a slumbering green picture,
to come at last to the shore
and be one with his own shadow.
Lament
He laid aside his pen.
It rests still on the table.
It rests still in the empty room.
He laid aside his pen.
Too much that can neither be written nor kept silent!
He is paralyzed by something happening far away
although the wonderful traveling bag throbs like a heart.
Outside it is early summer.
Whistlings from the greenery—men or birds?
And cherry trees in bloom embrace the trucks that have come home.
Weeks go by.
Night comes slowly.
The moths settle on the windowpane:
small pale telegrams from the world.
Allegro
I play Haydn after a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.
The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.
The resonance green, lively, and calm.
The music says freedom exists
and someone doesn’t pay the emperor tax.
I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets
and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.
I hoist the Haydnflag—it signifies:
“We don’t give in. But want peace.”
The music is a glasshouse on the slope
where the stones fly, the stones roll.
And the stones roll right through
but each pane stays whole.
The Half-Finished Heaven
Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.
The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a draft.
And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the Ice Age studios.
Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.
Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.
The endless ground under us.
The water is shining among the trees.
The lake is a window into the earth.
Nocturne
I drive through a village at night, the houses rise up
in the glare of my headlights—they’re awake, want to drink.
Houses, barns, signs, abandoned vehicles—now
they clothe themselves in Life. —The people are sleeping:
some can sleep peacefully, others have drawn features
as if training hard for eternity.
They don’t dare let go though their sleep is heavy.
They rest like lowered crossing barriers when the mystery draws past.
Outside the village the road stretches far among the forest trees.
And the trees the trees keeping silence in concord with each other.
They have a theatrical color, like firelight.
How distinct each leaf! They follow me home.
I lie down to sleep, I see strange pictures
and signs scribbling themselves behind my eyelids
on the wall of the dark. Into the slit between wakefulness and dream
a large letter tries to push itself in vain.
A Winter Night
The storm puts its mouth to the house
and blows to produce a note.
I sleep uneasily, turn, with shut eyes
read the storm’s text.
But the child’s eyes are large in the dark
and for the child the storm howls.
Both are fond of lamps that swing.
Both are halfway toward speech.
The storm has childish hands and wings.
The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems Page 5