TOMAS TRANSTRŌMER

“Six Winters”

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1
In the black hotel a child is asleep.
And outside: the winter night
where the wide-eyed dice roll.

2
An élite of the dead became stone
in Katarina Churchyard
where the wind shakes in its armour from Svalbard.

3
One wartime winter when I lay sick
a huge icicle grew outside the window.
Neighbour and harpoon, unexplained memory.

4
Ice hangs down from the roof edge.
Icicles: the upside-down Gothic.
Abstract cattle, udders of glass.

5
On a side-track, an empty railway-carriage.
Still. Heraldic.
With the journeys in its claws.

6
Tonight snow-haze, moonlight. The moonlight jellyfish itself
is floating before us. Our smiles
on the way home. Bewitched avenue.