THE UNKNOWN ONE
I have never seen your healing hand.
You come in the dark, when no one knows.
I wait in silence and reliance shy
in loneliness.
You my sister and mother, you and I and not I,
your name is night, an enigma's dark sun,
I sense you immense and mighty and blind
and soundlessly dumb.
You know depths of horrors I have not seen,
I tremble to break your law's secret way,
But you know a solace mild denied to me
by sunbright day.
I have silently hidden in you my wound
and ached among thorns till my soul was bare.
In the darkness you touched the bush - it leapt
into wild roses there.
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.