I

One evening in February I came near to dying here.

The car skidded sideways on the ice, out

on the wrong side of the road. The approaching cars -

their lights - closed in.

My name, my girls, my job

broke free and were left silently behind

further and further away. I was anonymous

like a boy in a playground surrounded by enemies.

The approaching traffic had huge lights.

They shone on me while I pulled at the wheel

in a transparent terror that floated like egg white.

The seconds grew - there was space in them -

they grew as big as hospital buildings.

You could almost pause

and breathe out for a while

before being crushed.

Then something caught: a helping grain of sand

or a wonderful gust of wind. The car broke free

and scuttled smartly right over the road.

A post shot up and cracked - a sharp clang - it

flew away in the darkness.

Then - stillness. I sat back in my seat-belt

and saw someone coming through the whirling snow

to see what had become of me.

II

I have been walking for a long time

on the frozen Östergötland fields.

I have not seen a single person.

In other parts of the world

there are people who are born, live and die

in a perpetual crowd.

To be always visible - to live

in a swarm of eyes -

a special expression must develop.

Face coated with clay.

The murmuring rises and falls

while they divide up among themselves

the sky, the shadows, the sand grains.

I must be alone

ten minutes in the morning

and ten minutes in the evening.

- Without a programme.

Everyone is queuing at everyone's door.

Many.

One.

Tomas Tranströmer, from New Collected Poems (Bloodaxe), trs. Robin Fulton

http://anthonywilsonpoetry.com/lifesaving-poems-tomas-transtromers-alone

 

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