Poem on snow by the Swedish poet Lars Gustafsson

Snow

Early, in the light-grey darkness after snowfall

I heard the child speak, in word-strings and sounds.

It was a language from a foreign tongue,

one lighter and more gentle, it fell like snow.

In the faces of lovers for a helpless moment

one can see something before they know they are in love

and everything’s restored. There is glass

and when it breaks one hears a special sound

and cracks through frozen lakes run on

so fast that no bird’s flight can emulate it.

I do not know how many daybreaks I have seen

but none correctly matched the day that followed.

It passes. Does not linger. The crack runs on.

But in the light-grey, the indefinite, we could reside.

You know what snow looks like once it has fallen.