When They Sleep

All people are children when they sleep.

There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.

They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.

If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
—God, teach me the language of sleep.

Rolf Jacobsen, The Roads Have Come to an End Now: Selected and Last Poems of Rolf Jacobsen, translated from the Norwegian by Robert Hedin (Copper Canyon Press, 2001)