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    Prayer To The Sun

    Merciless one with eyes which have never seen
      the darkness!
    Liberator breaking the ice with golden
      hammers!
    Save me.
    
    Straight as thin lines are the flower stalks sucked
      on high:
    closer to you shall the trellices tremble.
    The trees hurl their might like pillars towards
      your glory:
    only up there
    do they spread their light-thirsty leafy embrace,
      devoted.
    
    You drew man
    from an earthbound stone with blind eyes
    to wandering swaying plant with heavenly winds
      about its brow.
    Yours is the stalk and the stem. Yours is my 
      spine.
    
    Save it.
    Not my life. Not my skin.
    No gods reign over the outer world.
    With darkened eyes and broken limbs
    it is yours, you who lived upright
    and you are with the one who dies upright
    when darkness devours darkness.
    
    The rumbling rises. The night swells.
    Life shimmers so deeply precious.
    Save, save, seeing god,
    what you gave.


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

    Swedish original



    Copyright © 1997:
    Translation from Swedish into English: Jenny Nunn
    Swedish original: Ulf Boye

    Published with the permission of:
    Jenny Nunn, translation.
    Ulf Boye, copyright of the Swedish original.
    May and Hans Mehlin, Layout.