Monday, May 7, 2012

The Meteorite in the Natural Museum




The size of a well-filled sack of potatoes
this heavenly lump of iron rests

in the museum’s peace. Its surface pleated
in a way that inevitably brings to mind

an exposed human brain,
it has a precocious air.

It existed before this planetary system did.
Finally found in Greenland,

it was heading toward this Earth
long before this Earth came into being.

Fearlessly falling through
the largest, the deepest darks;

arrowhead, ploughshare that for a moment finally
became flaming sword, unseen by eyes

in the Cambrian night when it became our guest.
                                                         
And now that I, most transient being,
for a moment let my fingers glide
                                                           
over this silent, strangely still surface,
this all-too-experienced drop out of the depths,

it appears, still and wise,
only to radiate an absent-minded benevolence.            

                                                           

English by Maria Freij

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