Monday 4 October 2010

A poem from 'Rib Cities' by the Swedish writer Eva Ström


To let your pen write on

So delightful to scribble on paper
let your pen write on without stopping to think
enjoy the strokes, the black on the white
neither thinking nor not thinking
just let your hand and thought run on
abreast for a while, out of step for a while
then the hand runs ahead of the thought
then the thought runs ahead of the hand
then they run abreast
then they get tired

a hare zigzagged across the fields
in the colours of last year’s leafs at first invisible
then he became a shadow
gained outline and being
until once more he was swallowed up by
the dusk-grey colour of the land

so delightful to scribble on paper
let something, anything
emerge from the grey
like the hare
without any warning
rush off unknown in a direction one does not
understand
be swallowed up
disappear

while the house found shelter from the north wind
where it crouched behind the mountain
pressed down by the fist of the oak
it even shook in squalls
the swans mated hissing
galloping over the surface of the water
took over clattering with outstretched wings
but the hare with its lonely brown eye
and the pen that runs over the paper
in the singing wood of the tiled stoves
runs and runs
comes to a halt

stops
gets itself ready for the night
like an animal
just stops
flattens a circle
and goes to sleep

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