Tuesday Poem

Tracks

Night, two o'clock: moonlight. The train has stopped
in the middle of the plain. Distance bright points of a town
twinkle cold on the horizon.

As when someone has gone into a dream so far
that he'll never remember he was there
when he come back to his room.

As when someone goes into a sickness so deep
that all his former days become twinkling points, a swarm,
cold and feeble on the horizon.

The train stand perfectly still.
Two o'clock: full moonlight, few stars.

by Tomas Tranströmer
from A Book of Luminous Things
Harcourt, 1996