Sunday Verse
Sailor's Tale
by Tomas Tranströmer
There are stark winter days when the sea has links
to the mountain areas, hunched over in feathery grayness,
blue for a moment, then the waves for hours are like pale
lynxes, trying to get a grip on the gravelly shore.
On a day like that the wrecks leave the sea and go looking for
their owners, surrounded by noise in the city, and drowned
crews blow toward land, more delicate than pipe-smoke.
(In the Far North, the real lynx walks, with sharpened claws
and dream eyes. In the Far North where the day
lives in a pit night and day.
There the sole survivor sits by the furnace
of the Northern Lights, and listens to the music
coming from the men frozen to death.)
