Winter - Eeva-Liisa Manner

Leaves float, hours, seasons
from room to room.
Snow blows, and in the openings curtains.
Desolation leans against the walls, spreads the house,
shadows lean and creak.
Snow, like a low creature, moves,
nests in corners.
Sparse squares and eyes freeze.
If a bird strays inside, it falls.
This hand that freezes does not warm it.

Here
only old voices stray
from wall to wall,
nest in my hair,
in the thin snow of my mind, beneath which
closed away are depth,
broken openings,
darkness smothered, and mice eager to live

---

Eeva-Liisa Manner (1921 - 1995) Finland
Translated by David McDuff and Hildi Hawkins
Source: Nordic Voices in Print