A sestina from 'Sonnets' (1977) by the Swedish poet Lars Gustafsson

XI (SESTINA)

There was a time each grain of time was whole.

As is the tennis ball when hanging a

razor-sharp hundredth of a second, waiting

above the net. Not ‘recently’ or ‘soon’

but a third something, which is all we see.

The rest is expectation or is time

that was, not mine though, someone else’s time.

The clean shot is what once more makes you whole.

This is the sole reality we see.

Expectations and memories fill a

mainly random personality, soon

for the next ball you can see it waiting.

Who is it though that stands there ready waiting?

All time is eaten up by thoughts of time

that was, or something that will happen soon.

Expectations and the rest memories. Whole

is only he who no longer sees a

second ball in the ball there is to see.

Such an event as that we really see

is more anonymous than we were waiting

for. Years and princes existing in a

past age seem to live in a stiffened time.

By name we make the broken vessel whole.

It’s borne with caution to a well that soon

seems deep and full of powerful voices. Soon

only a lonely echo’s left – you see

the water’s gleaming mirror, which is whole.

It lies down there below you waiting,

so inaccessible. It’s you. Your time

is brief. A single stone’s enough. And a

thousand splinters now glitter in a

well against whose grey-stone sides there soon

play flickering reflections. Which are time.

The only time we understand. We see

in splinters. In stiffened pose stand waiting.

The clean shot is what once more makes you whole.

We all live in a nameless world. We see.

We die as soon as we recall; die waiting.

There was a time each grain of time was whole.


For an explanation of the sestina form, go to here.