Truth Barriers

"We are at a party which doesn't love us. Finally the party lets the mask fall and shows what it is: a shunting station for freight cars. In the fog cold giants stand on their tracks. A scribble of chalk on the car doors.

One can't say it aloud, but there is a lot of repressed violence here. That is why the furnishings seem so heavy. And why it is difficult to see the other thing present: a spot of sun that moves over the house walls and over the unaware forest of flickering faces, a biblical saying never let down: "Come unto me, for I am as full of contradictions as you"

I work the next morning in a different town. I drive there in a hum through the dawning hour which resembles a dark blue cylinder. Orion hangs over the frost. Children stand in a silent clump, waiting for the school bus, the children no one prays for. The light grows as gradually as our hair. "

-Tomas Transtromer, "Below Freezing" from Truth Barriers