Tracks
Night, two o’clock: moonlight. The train has stopped
in the middle of the plain. Distant 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 that he was there
when he comes 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 stands perfectly still.
Two o’clock: full moonlight, few stars.
by Tomas Tranströmer
from A Book of Luminous Things
Harvest Books, 1996