Tomas Transtromer, the Swedish poet and psychotherapist, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2011.  Transtromer, who died in 2015, wrote this poem after the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but, as anyone with eyes open should see, it is not merely a topical or occasional piece.  Reading it today should make that abundantly clear . . .

AFTER A DEATH

Tomas Transtromer

(translated from the Swedish by Robert Bly)

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV picture snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to feel the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.