To August Strindberg
There was
one
standing alone
at the heart of the earth,
looking for a sunbeam.
There was one
lying in a bed
of white dreams
waiting for the spring.
We pass daily
through the red room
as if a lost bird
that flies without a destination.
We live without reason
and seek nothing,
bare images of youth
and assume a touch
can be enough
when nothing else warms up
the need in our hearts.
We sing the life
like a gull on top of an ocean,
we dance by the horizon
for the fragments
of the mementos
and suddenly
arrives the evening.
Translated from Swedish by Sheema Kalbasi