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    Farewell

    I would have woken you to a nakedness like a naked
      spring evening,
    when the stars overflow
    and the Earth burns beneath melting snow.
    I would have seen you just once
    sink into the darkness of creative chaos,
    would have seen your eyes like a wide-opened space,
    ready to be filled,
    would have seen your hands like blossoming flowers,
    empty, new, awaiting.
    
    You  leave, and nothing of this have I given you.
    I never reached, where your soul lies bare.
    You go, and you take nothing of me with you -
    leaving me to my defeat.
    
    I remember another farewell:
    we were hurled from the crucible as one being,
    and when we were parted, we no longer knew
    what was I or you ...
    But you - like a bowl of glass you have left my hand,
    so complete as only a dead thing and so unchangeable,
    with no memories other than light fingermarks
    which are washed away in water.
    
    I would have woken you to a formlessness like a
      formless flickering flame,
    which at last finds its living shape, its own ...
    Defeat, oh defeat!


    Translated into English by Jenny Nunn in "To a friend".

    Swedish original



    Copyright © 1997:
    Translation from Swedish into English: Jenny Nunn

    Published with the permission of:
    Jenny Nunn, translation.
    May and Hans Mehlin, Layout.
     
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