Werner Aspenström: "Jag trodde först det var en rauk"

I THOUGHT AT FIRST IT WAS A STACK

I thought at first it was a stack

a bather typical of limestone coasts

forced up out of the lovely sea.

I slowly drew nearer

what I had thought a mangled stone pillar.

It turned its head like an owl.

With twin eyes we looked at each other.

He took over my impulse to flee from danger

and hurried behind the limestone headland.

I tried out his ruse

of letting myself become stone

and only listen,

only listen to the lovely sea.