And always the sea, there. I go down in the night and hear you
come flying, underwater, alone,
under the sea that inhabits me, darkly:
you come flying.
I listen for wings and your slow elevation,
while the torrents of all who have perished assail me,
blind doves flying sodden:
you come flying.
You come flying alone, in your solitude,
alone with the dead, alone with eternity,
shadowless, nameless, you come flying
without sweets, or a mouth, or a thicket of roses,
you come flying.
(translated by Ben Belitt)
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.”
The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul as dew to grass.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That is all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.
As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.
I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Someone else’s. She will be someone else’s. As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.
Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.
