Put me to death
in the blood of this crystal
that I might go unblemished to God.
An embrace of vineyards and sugarcane
overthrew the quietude in which I rose.
A sweet embrace remembered
will open into the light
the protected, ravelled way,
used for the first time
in centuries of brotherly silence.
Through so much anointing,
through so much stony silence
moist silence of tile sun of flight
— silence revived in cries.
Put me to death
in the mystery of Your wine and Your water
on the side through which I live,
on the rock in which I seek wisdom
through the fog of a mystical tropical morning.
If I am put to death this way
I might live forever in the silence
of a day without soil and brine.

All may come by the roads
we least suspect.
All may come from within, wordless,
or from without, burning
and breaking itself in us, unexpectedly,
or grow, as certain joys grow,
with no one listening.
And everything may open one day in our hands
with wistful surprise
or with bitter surprise, unarmed, undressed,
with the sadness of he who suddenly
comes face to face with a mirror and doesn’t see himself
and looks at his eyes and fingers
and uselessly searches for his laughter.
And that’s the way it is. All may come
in the most incredibly desired way,
so strangely far
and coming, not come
nor leave when left behind and lost.
And, for that encounter, one must gather poppies,
a sweet bit of skin, peaches or child,
clean for the greeting.

All is peace and calm… In the twilight
The aroma of jasmines can be smelled,
And, over the glassy surface of the river,
Is heard the flapping wings of the swans

Which, like a bunch of snowy flowers,
Glide over the smooth water surface.
Now the dusky bats reemerge
From their many secret hiding places,

And a thousand turns, and capricious spins
They make in the tranquil atmosphere;
Or fly very close to the ground,

Barely grazing with their gray wings
The yellow petal of the bitter thistle,
Or the virgin corolla of the humble mallow.

Oh rose, rose of mine! that once sprang sprightly up,
why do you bend double, flaccid, weak and sad,
your petals withered, your once-green calyx pale?
Do you tell the earth the sweetness of your past,
like the long secret story of dead hopes
a dying virgin whispers to her priest?

Thinking on what was, and to see how you decline,
I’d wish to raise the stalk on which you languish,
to give fresh strength to you; beauty, color;
to return, with a sigh, your perfumed breath
to bring you to my lips and in a long, long kiss
press upon you new, most softly, heat and fire.

Her delicate way
came from a blue planet
from indigo tinting
shadows or space… Dawn
open to crystal… Her own
way of taking
the first light’s secret
triumphed… And a thousand
formulas of moon and shadow,
of turquoise and of spring.

Now I know
that distance is three-dimensional.
It’s not true that the space between you and me
can be measured in metres and inches,
as if the streets might cross each other freely,
as if it were easy to hold out your hand.

This is a solid, robust distance,
and the absence is total,
complete;
in spite of the illusory possibility
of the telephone
it is thick, and long, and wide.