The Name — A Poem by Tomas Tranströmer

The Name

TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER

I got sleepy while driving and pulled over under a tree at the side of the road. Rolled up in the back seat and went to sleep. How long? Hours. Darkness had come.

All of a sudden I was awake, and didn’t know who I was. I’m fully conscious, but that doesn’t help. Where am I? WHO am I? I am something that has just woken up in a back seat, throwing itself around in a panic like a cat in a gunnysack. Who am I?

After a long while my life comes back to me. My name comes to me like an angel. Outside the castle walls there is a trumpet blast (as in the Leonora Overture) and the footsteps that will save me come swiftly down the long staircase. It’s me coming! It’s me!

But it is impossible to forget the fifteen second battle in the hell of nothingness, a few feet from a major highway where the cars slip past with their lights dimmed.