Track (after Tranströmer)
2 p.m.: Sunlight. The subway flows
beneath us. Flecks of darkness
shimmer madly on the wall.
As when a man cracks a window into a dream,
remembering everything, even
what never occurred.
Or after skimming the surface of good health,
all his nights become ash, billowing clouds,
strong and warm, suffocating him.
The subway never stops.
2 o’clock. Filtered sunlight, smoke.
* * *
I’ve been dipping into Friends, You Drank Some Darkness, Robert Bly’s 1975 translations of Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelöf and Tomas Tranströmer, and I couldn’t resist playing with one of my favorite poems. A different darkness, a separate space, another landscape…
This first appeared here in April 2015.
O at the Edges 
Love the Bly translations!
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They opened my world!
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Mmmmm the clock ticking at 2pm…….. Filtered sunlight that turns out not to be so scorchy…
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I’ve had my fill of the scorchy!
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Same here…. The kind that makes you want to drink loads of water……
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This cuts really close. Perhaps it’s my age, but so many I know seem to be stuck in stanza 3. A nightmare that changes the quality of light and dark. (K)
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I’ve experience my share of that lately, as well.
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