Alone

A l o n e

by

Tomas Tranströmer

(A poem by the 2011 Nobel prize for literature winner)

I

One evening in February I came near to dying here.

The car skidded sideways on the ice, out

on the wrong side of the road. The approaching cars –

their lights – closed in.

My name, my girls, my job

broke free and were left silently behind

further and further away. I was anonymous

like a boy in a playground surrounded by enemies.

The approaching traffic had huge lights.

They shone on me while I pulled at the wheel

in a transparent terror that floated like egg white.

The seconds grew – there was space in them –

they grew as big as hospital buildings.

You could almost pause

and breathe out for a while

before being crushed.

Then something caught: a helping grain of sand

or a wonderful gust of wind. The car broke free

and scuttled smartly right over the road.

A post shot up and cracked – a sharp clang – it

flew away in the darkness.

Then – stillness. I sat back in my seat-belt

and saw someone coming through the whirling snow

to see what had become of me.

II

I have been walking for a long time

on the frozen Östergötland fields.

I have not seen a single person.

In other parts of the world

there are people who are born, live and die

in a perpetual crowd.

To be always visible – to live

in a swarm of eyes –

a special expression must develop.

Face coated with clay.

The murmuring rises and falls

while they divide up among themselves

the sky, the shadows, the sand grains.

I must be alone

ten minutes in the morning

and ten minutes in the evening.

– Without a programme.

Everyone is queuing at everyone's door.

Many.

One.

Translated from the Swedish by Robin Fulton 

from 
New Collected Poems, translated by Robin Fulton (Bloodaxe Books, 2011)

Reference:
Tomas Tranströmer
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 October 2011 14.53 BST
Article history
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/06/tomas-transtromer-poem-alone-nobel-prize?intcmp=239