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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