THE TREE
When my door is shut and my lamp has gone out
and I sit in twilight's breathing wrapped,
then I feel around me move
branches, a tree's branches.
In my room where no one else lives
the tree spreads a shadow as soft as gauze.
It lives silent, it grows well,
it becomes what some unknown one thinks.
Some spirit-power, power secret made,
in the trees' hidden roots its will has laid.
I am frightened sometimes and ask in fear:
Are we so surely friends?
But it lives in calm and it grows still,
and I know not where it strives and whither it will.
It is sweet and bewitching to live so near
one whom one does not know...
Translated into English by David McDuff in "Karin Boye: Complete poems".
Swedish original
Copyright © 2005:
Translation from Swedish into English: David McDuff
Published with the permission of:
David McDuff, translation.
May and Hans Mehlin, Layout.
For more information, please visit the website of David McDuff and his own pages with the translations.