Poetry

 

The great trouble

Nature's laws are already on the way
to stand us all against the wall.
That wall is law's own nature.
It is missing an evangel.
That great trouble all of us must share.
Then it will be possible to bear.
The great trouble is to take great trouble.
That is what all of us must learn.

Amid all shoulds and should have beens
there is one must for all.
All must learn to take great trouble with the world.

Now that man has gotten power enough
to bring about the trouble of the world
the time is now
to heal the trouble of the world in time
before all nature has become
everybody's troubled child.

This is called taking trouble in time.
True trouble
which sees in time to what it sees.

 

By Harry Martinson
From Dikter om ljus och mörker, 1971
Translated by Stephen Klass and Carolyn Skantz

Published with the permission of Eva Martinson