the Gävle canal is as shiny as metal
and regardless of weather it always reflects
a cloud cover somewhere, so you never
feel up to carving your heart in
the water and, blindly as a poem that
is written too soon, flowing away
from the county extras in the square

the streets lie as someone must have
laid them out once, waiting, the light from
pavements rises toward an overgrown sky
and not until five o’clock when the factory gate
opens do you see a child run over to
her father while he looks like a stranger
and share his uneasiness before it disappears

it is here in a worn-down province
where from hour to hour the street-trees
cast shadows longer than before
collect water and watch that the adults
keep track of their allotted time
and preferably feel no regret

it is here in a worn-down province
where no citrus trees bloom
where the swallows do not even come and
summer is almost somber with sun
that people lie awake and think
while the gardens slowly take root
only a few dogs are still about
an eagle lands on a coverlet of
air, while a child in her bed gets
the printed wallpaper to look like
a sky that will clear up soon

it is here in a worn-down province
with a wistfulness no one dares love
that the gravel on the paths of the manor grounds
keeps creaking for years
after the last lovers have gone away

it is here in a worn-down province
that the last flock of houses has long
since stopped so people can watch TV
and save up tears for future use

only a nestless sparrow flutters up into the air
only a breath as if from everything’s
lawless sorrow makes a tree
whisper a black indefinite sound

before the train starts up with a jerk
and I soon will remember only the
empty platform and the bench with the

wet newspaper, which the wind,
leafing so pensively through everything, never
could lift, while the rest is washed into

my childhood somewhere in a
dry indestructible house where
I stand by a window and look
at the train through the sheets of rain

evening June sixteenth