Siesta
A poem by Tomas Tranströmer translated from Swedish by Daniel Carden Nemo
Pentecost of the stones. And with crackling tongues...
The city weightless in the wide sweep of the midday hour.
A burial in seething light. The drum that drowns out
the pounding fists of trapped eternity.
The eagle swirls higher and higher over the sleepers.
Sleep, where the millwheel turns like thunder.
The stomping of a blindfolded horse.
The pounding fists of trapped eternity.
The sleepers hang like plumb weights in the tyrants’ clock.
The eagle drives death into the sun’s bright torrent.
And echoing through time—as in Lazarus’ coffin—
the pounding fists of trapped eternity.
From Hemligheter på vägen (Secrets on the Way), 1958