The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems Read online

  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.r />
  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.