On Losing A Passport Poem by Jüri Talvet

On Losing A Passport



The passport lost — long live liberty!
A frown fell from your face,
the stamp's stern shield suddenly gave way,
and having shrugged from your shoulders twenty years
and the border guard's careful watch,
you plunged into liberty. Liberty!
No address drew you back,
no signature, no Ariadnian thread of the future,
not even the myth with the help of which
you prudently tried to multiply yourself.
Rain and sleet chip at you,
foreign hands crush. Your form
fragments under trampling feet.
(Soon you yourself will feel the weight of history's feet.)
Liberty! Into the airspace where you were
a fresh snowflake floats, and briefly pauses.

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