Vermeer

No sheltered world...Just behind the wall, the noise commences,
the tavern commences,
laughing and bitching, teeth in rows, tears, bells ringing
and the crackbrained brother in-law, bearer of death, before whom
    all must tremble.

The great explosion and salvation's belated tramping
boats swaggering at anchor, money skulking into pockets
    of the wrong man,
claim upon claim piling up
the gaping red chalices of flowers secreting presentiments of war.

From there and straight through the wall, into the bright atelier,
into the second that will live for centuries
a painting calling itself, The Music Lesson
or A Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.
She is in her eighth month, two hearts kicking within her.
On the wall behind, a wrinkled map of Terra Incognita.

Breathe slowly...an unfamiliar blue fabric is nailed fast to the chairs.
Gold rivets that flew in with unprecedented speed, coming to
a standstill
as though there had never been anything save quiet repose.

A rushing sound in the ears from depths or from heights
pressure from the other side of the wall
makes every detail hover
gives resolve to the brush.

It is painful to walk through walls, you grow ill from it.
But it is necessary.
The world is one. Walls, however...
And the wall is a part of you -
You either acknowledge it or you don't, yet it is the same for everyone.
Except for small children. For them, no wall.

The lucid sky inclines against the wall.
Like a prayer to the void.
And the void turns its face to us
whispering
”I am not void. I am open.”

© Tomas Tranströmer and Gordon Walmsley.
Thanks to Tomas Tranströmer and Bonnier Group Agency for permission.
trans. Gordon Walmsley