* * *
I’m holding these leaves close to my lips —
Their light-green and glutinous oath,
And this oath-breaking earth — the mother
Of snowdrops and maples and oaks.
Look at how I’m growing stronger
Going blind by obeying the roots.
Isn’t it just too much of a splendor
That the garden put forward for us?
Croaking frogs, like the beads of quicksilver,
Merge their voices into a bigger ball,
And the sticks become twigs, little by little,
And the vapor becomes a milky fable.
* * *
The range of round coves, the ridge, the endless blue,
The slowly moving sail extended by a cloud —
Too early, as it goes, I was cut off from you:
Sea grass is longer than an organ fugue
And bitterer too — it smells of lies aloud,
The head is spinning touched by a tender hue,
And rust eats gingerly the shore devoid of crowds . . .
Why am I given then so different a ground:
Broad-shouldered Volga, or full-throated Ural,
Or this flat region? — I don’t have a clue,
Yet I must breathe them deeply, in and out.
* * *
Where is the chained and tightly bound moan?
Where is Prometheus — the rock’s collaborator?
And eagle — where? Where is it with its claws
And sullen yellow eyes that slice like razors?
It’s over — tragedies would not endure.
But those lips, advancing and evolving,
But those lips lead us directly to
The loader Aeschylus and Sophocles, the logger,
Like echo and salute, a post — no, like a plough . . .
The theater made of stone and time and air
Jumps to its feet, all watching everyone —
Begotten, doomed, immortal, unaware.
* * *
Armed with the vicious vision of the wasps
That suck at the earth’s axis, the earth’s axis,
I’m mindful of whatever came across
And do remember it by heart — for nothing.
I neither draw nor sing — and never did.
I don’t disturb strings with a moaning bow.
I cherish life, and digging into it
I envy wasps, these mighty smart fellows.
The summer warmth put me under a spell
Denying death, denying morbid slumber.
Oh, if I only could somehow get as well
A feel of the earth’s axis, the earth’s axis . . .
* * *
What is next? — I got lost in the heavens.
Answer me, you, to whom they are close!
Dante’s nine discuses, reverberating —
Better not to be swindled by those.
Life and I cannot be separated
‘Cause to kill also means to caress
Filling ears, and eyes, and eye sockets
With the Florentine longing and rage.
Do not put, do not put on my temples
A sweet-smelling and sharp-leafed laurel,
Better tear my heart to pieces,
To the sounds of a fractured bell.
When my journey is finally over,
Bonds of love will not fade right away,
And the heavens’ response still will hover
Over heads, over grave, over death.