He often began his poems with descriptions of mundane settings and acts, but he was also interested in dreams and the other uncontrollable wanderings of thought. In “Preludes” (translation by May Swenson) he wrote:

Two truths approach each other

One comes from within,

one comes from without — and where they meet you have the chance

to catch a look at yourself.

His poems often had transcendental moments that led some critics to consider him a religious poet or a mystic. In “Further In,” from the 1973 volume “Paths,” the quotidian and the unfathomable collide, in both the body of the poet and in the world. Translated by Robin Fulton, the poem reads in its entirety:

On the main road into the city

when the sun is low.

The traffic thickens, crawls.

It is a sluggish dragon glittering.

I am one of the dragon’s scales.

Suddenly the red sun is

right in the middle of the windshield

streaming in.

I am transparent

and writing becomes visible

inside me

words in invisible ink

that appear

when the paper is held to the fire!

I know I must get far away

straight through the city and then

further until it is time to go out

and walk far into the forest.

Walk in the footprints of the badger.

It gets dark, difficult to see.

In there on the moss lie stones.

One of the stones is precious.

It can change everything

it can make the darkness shine.

It is a switch for the whole country.