wordsout by godfrey rust
Poems I'd like to have written >


Romanesque arches
by Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly

Tourists have crowded into the half-dark of the 
     enormous Romanesque church.
Vault opening behind vault and no perspective.
A few candle flames flickered.

An angel whose face I couldn't see embraced me
and his whisper went all through my body:
Don't be ashamed to be a human being
be proud!
Inside you one vault after another opens endlessly.
You'll never be complete, and that's as it should be.

Tears blinded me
as we were herded out into the fiercely sunlit piazza,
together with Mr and Mrs Jones, Herr Tanaka and 
     Signora Sabatini

within each of them vault after vault opened endlessly.


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