ASPENSTRÖM, Werner

The inchworm

I stretch out full length from my cherry-leaf

and gaze toward eternity:

eternity is altogether too large today

altogether too blue and endlessly vast.

I think I’ll stay on my cherry-leaf

and take the measure of my green cherry-leaf.

Oh, these dark woods

Oh, these dark forest within us

where giants slumber.

That which we call the soul

is just a wandering sun spot

beneath the trees, a cut

where the oblique light reaches.