A blue glow
Streams out from my clothes.
Midwinter.
A clinking tambour made of ice.
I close my eyes.
Somewhere there’s a silent world
And there is an opening
Where the dead
Are smuggled over the border.

Tomas Tranströmer was born in 1931 in Stockholm, Sweden. He attended the University of Stockholm, where he studied psychology and poetry. His books of poetry include The Half-Finished Heaven (Graywolf Press, 2001); New Collected Poems (1997); For the Living and the Dead (1995); Baltics (1974); Paths (1973); Windows and Stones (1972), an International Poetry Forum Selection and a runner-up for the National Book Award for translation; The Half-Finished Sky (1962); and Seventeen Poems (1954).

Robert Bly has had a profound impact on the shape of American poetry. He is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, including The Night Abraham Called to the Stars (HarperCollins, 2001); Snowbanks North of the House (1999); What Have I Ever Lost by Dying?: Collected Prose Poems (1992); Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (1987); Mirabai Versions (1984); This Body is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood (1977); and The Light Around the Body (1967), which won the National Book Award. (from www.poets.org)

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