The Half-Finished heaven

(c) Tomas Transtromer

Despondency breaks off its course.
Anguish breaks off its course.
The vulture breaks off its flight.

The eager light streams out,
even the ghosts take a draught.

And our paintings see daylight,
our red beasts of the ice-age studios.

Everything begins to look around.
We walk in the sun in hundreds.

Each man is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.

The endless ground under us.

The water is shining among the trees.

The lake is a window into the earth.

Reflection-

My personal take when I first read this poem to me was; I think in one aspect it serves to tell us that despondency is like water; where it fills and feels at home within the vessel that holds it so closely guarded. Perhaps in part because despondency may well be for some of us, the last of our feelings we can still manage to feel within the eye of a storm we alone have become and out of an earnest love, we refuse to share it.