LONELINESS
I.
One evening in February I came near to dying here.
The car skidded sideways on the ice, out
on the wrong side of the road. The approaching cars—-
their lights—-closed in.
My name, my girls, my job
broke free and were left silently behind
further and further away. I was anonymous
like a boy in a playground surrounded by enemies.
The approaching traffic had huge lights.
They shone on me while I pulled at the wheel
in a transparent terror that floated like egg white.
The seconds grew—-there was space in them—-
they grew big as hospital buildings.
You could almost pause
and breathe out for a while
before being crushed.
Then a hold caught: a helping grain of sand
or a wonderful gust of wind. The car broke free
and scuttled smartly right over the road.
A post shot up and cracked—-a sharp clang—-it
flew away in the darkness.
Then—-stillness. I sat back in my seat-belt
and saw someone coming through the whirling snow
to see what had become of me.
II.
I have been walking for a long time
on the frozen Ostergotland fields.
I have not seen a single person.
In other parts of the world
there are people who are born, live and die
in a perpetual crowd.
To be always visible—-to live
in a swarm of eyes—-
a special expression must develop.
Face coated with clay.
The murmuring rises and falls
while they divide up among themselves
the sky, the shadows, the sand grains.
I must be alone
ten minutes in the morning
and ten minutes in the evening.
—-Without a program.
Everyone is queuing for everyone else.
Many.
One.
—-Tomas Transtromer, translated by Robin Fulton
