immigrant

moving

in one airplane flight

three thousand

four hundred

and twenty two miles

from the chafed skin of working class subsistence

to the heart of working class modernity

i am eight years old

looking through

a window

a large plate glass window

through which i can see

the very big american cars

travelling past the very big building

i now call home

my entirety contained

in two bedrooms

an l-shaped living room dining room and kitchen

and in that kitchen

a fridge and an electric stove

a bathroom with hot and cold running water

there's food in the fridge

and

in the cupboards

none of this possible

or even imaginable

twenty four hours earlier

in the same world

at the same time

side-by-side

mine and not mine

a beginning

and an end

my heart

stretched

to transparency

-

far off i found myself standing in front of one of the

new buildings.

many windows flowed together there into a single

window.

in it the luminous nightsky was caught, and the

walking trees.

it was a mirror-like lake with no waves, turned on edge

in the summer night.

excerpted from "out in the open" by tomas tranströmer translated by robert bly