Dark Shadows of Things Themselves

(1)

Could have been shorter. Having dragged on so, even a needle's jab
Cannot make the night twinge, cannot make this still wind
Rustle to life. The same shadow has descended
On you twice; like a dream that dims abruptly
At dawn, to leave a mark on your daylight skin.

No one recalls which fallen leaf is the autumn night you walked on,
In which window is stillness growing wordlessly?
No man hand could shield your crazy palm-line
From the glare. No tree can replace your tree,
A lawn devolves at shocking speed into a deserted roof.

And a bird, as it is flying along cross the heavens,
Its fallen shadow on earth blowing by the wind
Becomes another bird, dragging an unmatched pair
Of shoes, and while it zigzags through a thicket,
An overlooked skull comes back to the reeling shoulders.

(2)

Night’s soiled fingers are refused by the lamp, some old batteries
Squeeze out a melancholy aira. Facing a window lacking a world,
No one maintains Brodsky's milk-white calm.
If it's an empty room, then don't bother.
You know, two people are something definite.

When you carelessly lose a shoe, how can you foretell
The other will go on being lonely?
Not because of your foot, but for the shadow it cast
Once picked up, it will never fall that precise way.
As hollow as sound, as unreliable as a chair.

The postman's hand is knocked by an iron door. Rain
From darkness urges time's memory paling, like those butterflies
That turned to powder, a person might be many people.
They seem to be here, yet seem not to be.
Saying they love you, yet really loving themselves.

(3)

Wind has gone, and the sky in my foggy body
Finds clear blue. On this lone, clear-headed afternoon,
Newspaper on table serves for knife and fork. If it’s not me
Who repeatedly thinks of the same fish,
A whole pond of rainwater would soon dry up. Shadows of time

Fall like alligator tears between the clock's hands.
We cannot rotate the masts of time, just as we can't
Stop an incoming tide. At this moment who hears
The empty bottle shattering? When jagged shards spread light-flecks on
A fruit, the span of visible years are doubtful.

Like the roulette game we bet on so intently once, if ever
Its blood mounts to springtime in a horse's eye, our hunches
Will see further into the darkness. Cast aside the evening
And empty field of twilight, enter straight into time's core,
Like a wineglass that seeks beautifully illusory, fleeting dizziness.

(4)

The beginning of Being is only a dream. When its winter hair
Hangs long, right down to the roots of plants, vacant slumber
And body rise up as if out of dust.
Like a headache, while you cannot back away from it,
Neither can you bend it back as it had never been.

But no matter how deep grass grows, it will not bury moonlight,
My not being you hardly makes me your hiding place.
Once the flame goes out, a moth had better stay in its cocoon.
That's the way it is. The world darkens just like the book you open
---like a whirlpool dwindling, shadowy and hard to define.

You or me, who else are we? More like blue than red.
More like rope than rope. That's all there is to it.
Most of the time, tears fly into our eyes.
Your sorrow can be yanked out by pliers, and what cannot
Are the eternal shadows of things themselves.

3/1996

Translated by Denis Mair

Last updated: November 29, 2004