So Far Beyond This ...

from the Swedish of Hjalmar Gullberg

It came so sudden, so miraculous.

Is it a tone I hear, a glint I see,

that only passes by me in its rush

to vanish, dissipate, no longer be?

A nothing has caressed with friendly hand

my hand, which just now was so white with frost.

Was it a greeting from some unknown land,

a spirit-letter in the latest post

from one who knew me but kept his peace,

kept hidden from me, someone so sublime,

so far beyond this thing that they call space,

so far beyond this thing that they call time.

Bill Coyle

© 1997; originally printed in The Tennessee Quarterly.
Reprinted by permission of the author.