Poetry

 

From Li Kan speaks beneath the tree

Waves from all upheavals turn swiftly old
and paths from all upheavals soon become highroads.
What is left is a longing for something not
the wheel of appetites or revenges.

Man is best when he wishes good he cannot do
and stops breeding evil he finds easier to do.
He will still have a direction. It will have no end in view.
It is free from unsparing endeavor.

 

By Harry Martinson
From Passad, 1945
Translated by Stephen Klass

Published with the permission of Eva Martinson