From July ‘90, Tomas Tranströmer | translation by Patty Crane

← v10n1, Spring 2011

It was a funeral

and I sensed the dead man

was reading my thoughts

better than I could.

The organ kept quiet, birds sang.

The hole out in the blazing sun.

My friend’s voice lingered

in the minutes’ farthest side.

I drove home seen through

by the summer day’s brilliance

by rain and stillness

seen through by the moon.

translation grief mortality

Patty Crane

Patty Crane’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary , Bellevue Literary Review, RUNES, The Massachusetts Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, and West Branch , among other journals. Her awards include the 2004 Two Rivers Review Poetry Prize and Atlanta Review’s 2005 International Publication Prize.