PARADISE Poem by Lars Gustafsson

The swamp, forbidden to enter
Dangerous depths with purple loosestrife and bitter clover.
The salamanders that we caught
and called ‘water lizards'.

They were supposed to cause warts on fingers
Because they themselves had warts.

Surely extinct now. Who needs them?
Suddenly the boy was twenty years old.

Ahead of him, life,
extending endlessly like the plains of Kurland.

The creeks. The salamanders.
We took it all away.

No one else.