Wednesday, July 28, 2021

1071. Morning Birds - Tomas Tranströmer

 Translated from the Swedish by Gunnar Harding and Frederic Will

I wake my car.

Its windshield is covered with pollen.

I put on my sunglasses

and the song of the birds darkens.


While another man buys a newspaper

in the railroad station

near a large goods wagon

which is entirely red with rust

and stands flickering in the sun.


No emptiness anywhere here.


Straight across the spring warmth a cold corridor

where someone comes hurrying

to say that they are slandering him

all the way up to the Director.


Through a backdoor in the landscape

comes the magpie

black and white, Hel’s bird.

And the blackbird moving crisscross

until everything becomes a charcoal drawing,

except for the white sheets on the clothesline:

a Palestrina choir.


No emptiness anywhere here.


Fantastic to feel how my poem grows

while I myself shrink.

It is growing, it takes my place.

It pushes me out of its way.

It throws me out of the nest.

The poem is ready.


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