[from Tomas Tranströmer's The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer, tr. Robert Bly, Graywolf, 2001]
Allegro
After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.
The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.
The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no taxes to Caesar.
I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.
I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
"We do not surrender. But want peace."
The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.
The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.
Wonderful. Thanks, Carol.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Daniel
abangxxx said:
ReplyDeleteLovely as many poems are. Yet there is strength and depth here. Music, free and beautiful, will not perish even if the rocks of force fly through.
So glad to have found your blog! Thanks for this.
ReplyDelete