Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2011 v10n1
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TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER
translation by Patty Crane

Nightbook Page

I stepped ashore one May night
into a chilly moonlight
where grass and flowers were gray
but their scent green.

I drifted up a slope
in the colorblind dark
while white stones
signaled back to the moon.

A time span
several minutes long
fifty-eight years wide.

And behind me
beyond the lead-shimmering waters
was the other coast
and those in command.

People with a future
instead of faces.


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