The Half-Finished Heaven

 

The Half-Finished Heaven

 

By Tomas Tranströmer (Swedish Poet and Nobel Laureate)

 Translated by Robin Fulton

 

Despondency breaks off its course.

Anguish breaks off its course.

The vulture breaks off its flight.

 

The eager light streams out,

 even the ghosts take a draught.

 

And our paintings see daylight,

 our red beasts of the ice-age studios.

 

Everything begins to look around.

 We walk in the sun in hundreds.

 

Each man is a half-open door

leading to a room for everyone.

 

The endless ground under us.

 

The water is shining among the trees.

 

The lake is a window into the earth.

 

Tomas Tranströmer’s "The Half-Finished Heaven" is a luminous and redemptive poem that captures the sudden breaking of despair by glimpses of hope and illumination. The Swedish Nobel laureate, known for his sparse but emotionally rich language, distills a vast emotional and spiritual shift into just a few carefully chosen images and lines.

The poem opens in darkness — with “despondency,” “anguish,” and even a “vulture” — symbols of death, hopelessness, and sorrow. But this heaviness is disrupted. The phrase "breaks off its course” suggests that suffering, though powerful, is not endless. There is an abrupt, almost miraculous intervention: “The eager light streams out.” It’s not passive light but eager — hungry to redeem, to touch, to restore.

 

From that turning point, the world awakens. Even “ghosts,” symbols of lingering sorrow or memory, are revived — “take a draught” — as if nourished by the new light. Tranströmer then introduces metaphors of art: “our paintings see daylight,” and “red beasts of the ice-age studios.” These suggest that even what was buried deep within human history or psyche — our primal instincts, ancient creations — are returning to view, revitalized.

 The lines “Each man is a half-open door / leading to a room for everyone” are especially powerful. They evoke the possibility of connection, empathy, and community. We are not complete or perfect (“half-open”), but we are entryways to something larger, something hospitable. This idea makes the title The Half-Finished Heaven feel apt — the world is incomplete but leaning toward beauty and redemption.

The closing lines bring in elements of nature: “The water is shining among the trees,” and “The lake is a window into the earth.” These observations feel sacred — as though the earth itself is opening up to understanding.

 

Overall, The Half-Finished Heaven is a quietly stunning meditation on the potential for renewal, both personal and collective. It affirms that beauty, connection, and meaning can emerge even after deep despair. In just a few lines, Tranströmer reminds us that we live not in a finished paradise, but in a world always half-built toward grace — and that may be enough.

In the Crowd

 

 Roger Greenwald’s poem “In the Crowd” is a quiet, tender meditation on belonging, anonymity, and shared humanity. Written in fluid, meditative free verse, it immerses the reader in a deeply sensory and emotional experience of being alone among others — yet paradoxically not isolated. The  poem captures the sacredness of a communal experience that does not require personal connection.

The poem is anchored around a universal moment: standing in a crowd, not knowing anyone by name, yet being fully present, fully with others. There’s a profound emotional intelligence here — the speaker is alone but not lonely, nameless but not invisible. He observes others intimately: the smell of their damp wool sweaters, their hair, the echo of their infancy, their shifting postures. These details elevate the everyday into a sacred ritual of shared embodiment.

The line  “as though / you were saying their words yourself” captures a kind of empathetic fusion — the self dissolves into the collective, and language becomes communal. It is not about individual identity, but about being porous, attuned to the lives and presences of others.

The poem moves seamlessly from the stillness of waiting to the movement of entering the hall. The transition is physical and symbolic: “they do not push forward but / do not avoid the bodies either.” This crowd is not aggressive, yet it is forceful in its gentle momentum — an embodiment of community as a living current.

Inside the hall, the sensory detail becomes even more acute: the poet lists the contents of his leather jacket — kleenex, matches (in case someone needs to light up a cigarette) , lip balm, a book with 500 addresses. These items are humble and human, reminders of care, readinesss, and the scattered threads of connection to “the world outside.” Yet, inside this crowd, he holds no name to say — a poignant reminder of solitude within togetherness.

The poem reaches a luminous climax with the music. The mountain horn becomes both metaphor and experience — its ancient call resonating not just in the air but in the speaker’s body. Music becomes the language of belonging: “you hear its song as though / you were calling its notes / yourself.” This is not passive listening — it is embodied participation.

Then, a woman steps forward to sing — and “Then, a woman steps forward to sing — and “at any moment / she will call out, she will /  call the beginning /of something you belong to”. This final note is sublime. It holds promise — not a guarantee, but a possibility that in this shared moment, something larger than identity or speech or even memory might begin — something that welcomes you.

from An Opening in the Vertical World, by Roger Greenwald.

Boston: Black Widow Press, 2024. ISBN-13: 979-8-9911391-0-6

 

About the Poet : Roger Greenwald  studied at The City College of New York and the Poetry Project workshop at St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery. He is the author of five books of poems, most recently An Opening in the Vertical World and the book-lenght sonnet sequence Keener Sounds: A Suite (2025). His poetry has earned major honors, such as the the CBC Literary Award and the Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Prize from Exile Magazine.

Also noted as a translator, Greenwald has won numerous translation awards, among them the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.

His acclaimed translations include North in the World (Rolf Jacobsen), Guarding the Air (Gunnar Harding),and Through Naked Branches (Tarjei Vesaas).