morning bird songs

I wake up my car;

pollen covers the windshield.

I put my dark glasses on.

The bird songs all turn dark.

Meanwhile someone is buying a paper

at the railroad station

not far from a big freight car

reddened all over with rust.

It shimmers in the sun.

The whole universe is full.

A cool corridor cuts through the spring warmth;

a man comes hurrying past

describing how someone right up in the main office

has been telling lies about him.

Trough a backdoor in the landscape

the magpie arrives,

black and white, bird of the death-goddess.

A blackbird flies back and forth

until the whole scene becomes a charcoal drawing,

except for the white clothes on the line:

a Palestrina choir.

The whole universe is full!

Fantastic to feel how my poem is growing

while I myself am shrinking.

It's getting bigger, it's taking my place,

it's pressing against me.

It has shoved me out of the nest.

The poem is finished.

~ Tomas Transtromer

from The Unfinished Heaven

translated by robert bly