IDYLL

 
Your voice and your footsteps fall soft as dew on my 
                                              working day.
Where I sit there is spring in the air around me from your 
                                              living warmth.
You flower in my thought,  you flower in my blood, and I 
                                              wonder only
that my happy hands do not blossom into heavy roses.
Now the space of the everyday closes around us two, like a 
                                              soft, gentle mist.
Are you afraid of becoming a prisoner, are you afraid of 
                                              drowning in the greyness?
Do not be afraid: in the everyday's innermost depth,
in the heart of all life,
there burns with quietly humming flames a deep, secret 
                                              festival.
 
 
Translated into English by David McDuff in "Karin Boye: Complete poems".

Swedish original


Copyright © 2005:
Translation from Swedish into English: David McDuff

Published with the permission of:
David McDuff, translation.
May and Hans Mehlin, Layout.

For more information, please visit the website of David McDuff and his own pages with the translations.