the only thing that shines...

Tomas Tranströmer

April and Silence


Spring lies abandoned.
A ditch the color of dark violet
moves alongside me
giving no images back.

The only thing that shines
are some yellow flowers.

I am carried inside
my own shadow like a violin
in its black case.

The only thing I want to say
hovers just out of reach
like the family silver
at the pawnbroker’s.

           (Trans. Robert Bly)

*

My kind of spring poem. Edged with a darkness that I can’t help but see – “Spring lies abandoned”. Then the action fans out: moves, giving, shines, carried. Tranströmer understands solitude: “my own shadow like a violin / in its black case” – yes – but, equally, he understands the potential for music in himself.

The words to say hover “just out of reach” – like the drivers on a steam engine, off-centered, make perfect motion possible.