Ocean
by Olav H. Hauge
This is the ocean.
Vast and gray,
gravity itself.
Yet just as the mind
in solitary moments
suddenly opens
its shifting reflections
to secret depths---
so the ocean
one blue morning
can open itself
to sky and solitude.
See, the ocean gleams,
I, too, have stars
and blue depths.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Don't Come to Me With the Entire Truth
by Olav H. Hauge
Don't come to me with the entire truth.
Don't bring the ocean if I feel thirsty,
nor heaven if I ask for light;
but bring a hint, some dew, a particle,
as birds carry drops away from a lake,
and the wind a grain of salt.
From: "The Dream We Carry" Selected and Last Poems of Olav H. Hauge
Translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin
