Poem from the collection of the same name, Ormens tid (1992) by the Swedish poet Lennart Sjögren

The age of the snake

Sloughed our skin like the snake

and thereby survived one more year

but the art of sloughing is worse for us

than the snake.

Human skin does not slip off so easily

nor are there any deep heaps of boulders

where even the harshest of winters

can be lived through.

We must protect our lives a different way

when the heat is fierce

and apart from the outer wars

the real mutilation also

takes place within us

wherever we creep

we find fires and fires that have charcoaled.

To turn a deaf ear

and give oneself up to a coarsened cornea

that provides a certain legitimate blindness

only helps intermittently.

We call then on the snake

but the snake’s sleep has already begun.

There are other Sjögren poems on the blog, about a calf, pike, fox, crow. As well as a famous cycle of poems about bird-hunters, at a link from the poem about the fox.