For Tomas Transtroemer
The line he draws on his notebook
stretches out, endlessly,
with the sound of an axe cutting the air,
and continues its silent judgement, where
the world is halved.
I’m on one side;
My deeds the other, falling soundlessly;
A rebuke—
I cast my thought over
into the realm of inanity.
It bounces like a morning dew
on lifeless leaves.
Air is thinner there
than a breath.
I grab hold of the line —the edge of existence,
saved by an old hypothesis
of death.
published at Thirty West Publishing House
