Bernard Dewulf

1960 / BrĂ¼ssel

Dido's lament

Time is through with us.
Not later than tonight it will drive me to the dawn
of another country. The new morning will wake me up
at an incomprehensible window.

No one is ever made for someone. Sometimes
we get entangled in the lament of a countered soul.
And isn't, as you said, every moment at every moment
disposed to everyone's infinity?

The infinity is over now. I want my time
and my happiness. It can move our temporary heart
as it fails for all of twenty beautiful lines.
Yet in the mirror, it is a rude awakening.

I am leaving now, my man of never. I come from this side.
I am made of woman.
I cherish you.
I cherish you alone, that is the way we breathe.

My new country will wash me in streaming water,
rock me in its neat beds, think of me in its language.
I will make a thousand pictures of you there
and I will tire of watching emptiness.

English version by Sapphire/Ramona Lofton
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