“After a Death” by Tomas Tranströmer

I read that Tomas Tranströmer won the Nobel Literature Prize. Being unfamiliar with his work, I did a quick Google search and read a couple of his poems online.

In his poem “After a Death,” Tranströmer explores how we idealize persons and events after their passing. It is as if individuals reach mythical proportions in our memory after they have died. I believe that this happens because our strongest memories of a deceased person or passed event are the ones that figure most prominently. We essentially construct a view based upon what left the strongest impression upon us.

The poem’s final stanza best demonstrates this idea:

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