The tugboat is freckled with rust. What is it doing so far inland?
It’s a heavy burnt-out lamp, tipped over in the cold.
But the trees still carry colors – wild signals to the other shore as if
someone wanted to be fetched home.
On the way back, I see mushrooms pushing up through the grass.
Stretching for help, these white fingers belong
to someone who sobs down there in the darkness.
We belong to the earth.
From The Deleted World, a collection of free versions of Tomas Tranströmer’s poems. © Robin Robertson. Published 2006 by Enitharmon Press and 2011 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. By arrangement with Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved.
