DEEPENING LOW OVER THE BALTIC STATES

Here the road zigzags out to Sysne Point.

The horizon feeds out a sea,

constantly new lines that turn

and turn over the same used-up truths.

The sky is lumpish grey and so low

we have to stoop. A stroke of memory

could have lingered over the cliffs

and brushwood for a moment

sparkled like blueweed.

There is no memory.

Behind the window of the bosun´s cottage

looms an age-bent Nietzsche

cursing the oozing wick of the lamp:

it´s hindering his final work,

”Tragedy is Dead.” The rickety ladder

the old women of the village used

when scrubbing the sky clean in spring

is now chopped-up firewood by the doorstep.

The courtyard tree is hunched

like the school-book´s Model T Ford

as it nears the speed of light.

No heart is great or witless.

Even the grass keeps its head down.

It´s only between the newly written waves

we can read, with a bit of effort,

how history keeps on insisting.

Kjell Espmark, translated by Robin Fulton