from "The Half-Finished Heaven"

     In 2011, Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer (1931-2015) won the Nobel Prize and this year Graywolf Press has issued a wonderful collection of his work The Half-Finished Heaven: Selected Poems (translated by Robert Bly).  Here is the title poem; is it mathematical?

       The Half-Finished Heaven     by Tomas Transtromer

       Cowardice breaks off on its path.
       Anguish breaks off on its path.
       The vulture breaks off in its flight.

       The eager light runs into the open,
       even the ghosts take a drink.  

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

       Everything starts to look around.
       We go out in the sun by hundreds.

       Every person is a half-open door
       leading to a room for everyone.

       The endless field under us.

       Water glitters between the trees.

       The lake is a window into the earth.

Another of Transtromer's fine poems, "Open and Closed Spaces" is found here in a 2011 blog post and his "Reply to a Letter" was posted here in 2015.