The Four Temperaments
A poem by Tomas Tranströmer translated from Swedish by Daniel Carden Nemo
The probing eye turns sunbeams into police batons.
And in the evening: the clamor from a party downstairs
shoots up through the floor like surreal flowers.
Across the plain. Darkness. The car seemed rooted in place.
An anti-bird shrieked in the starless void.
The albino sun hung above dark lakes hurled onto the plains.
A man like an uprooted tree with cawing leaves
and lightning-bolt attention watched the beast-scented
sun rise among wings rattling over the world’s
rocky isle that rushed out from behind banners of foam
night and day, white seabirds screeching
on deck and everyone holding a ticket to Chaos.
You just need to close your eyes to hear clearly
the gulls ringing Sunday across the sea’s infinite parish.
A guitar starts strumming in the thickets and the cloud
floats slowly like the green sleigh of spring—
the neighing light harnessed before it—
gliding along the ice.
Woke up to my lover’s high heels clacking in a dream
and two snowdrifts outside like winter’s forgotten gloves
while leaflets from the sun swirled over the city.
The road never ends. The horizon hastens ahead.
Birds shudder in the tree. Dust spins around the wheels.
Every rolling wheel defies death!
From Hemligheter på vägen (Secrets on the Way), 1958