THE COUPLE

by Tomas Tranströmer

They turn the light off, and its white globe glows
an instant and then dissolves, like a tablet
in a glass of darkness. Then a rising.
The hotel walls shoot up into heaven’s darkness.
Their movements have grown softer, and they sleep,
but their most secret thoughts begin to meet
like two colors that meet and run together
on the wet paper in a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent. The city however has come nearer
tonight. With its windows turned off. Houses have come.
They stand packed and waiting very near,
a mob of people with blank faces.

Nobel Laureate ​Tranströmer is one of the most masterful poets of the last century. "His condensed, translucent images give us fresh access to reality" were the words with which the Nobel Prize was awarded to him.

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