Open and Closed Spaces

Open and Closed Spaces

Tomas Tranströmer

Translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton

A man feels the world with his work like a glove.
He rests for a while at midday having laid aside the gloves on a shelf.
There they suddenly grow, spread
and black out the whole house from inside.

The blacked-out house is away out among the winds of spring.
“Amnesty,” runs the whisper in the grass: “amnesty.”
A boy sprints with an invisible line slanting up in the sky
where his wild dream of the future lies like a kite bigger than the suburb.

Further north you can see from a summit the blue endless carpet of pine forest
where the cloud shadows
are standing still.
No, are flying.

Hope

Czeslaw Milosz

Hope is with you when you believe

The earth is not a dream but living flesh,

That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,

That all things you have ever seen here

Are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter. But you're sure it's there.

Could we but look more clearly and wisely

We might discover somewhere in the garden

A strange new flower and an unnamed star.

Some people say we should not trust our eyes,

That there is nothing, just a seeming,

These are the ones who have no hope.

They think that the moment we turn away,

The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,

As if snatched up by the hands of thieves.