Having overcome the accidents of Winter, Summer, Spring, and the Rains,

I welcome at my heart’s evening the void, the null, the absolute zero

No longer prey to the whimsy of the seasons, I rejoice
In freedom from function,
liberty from thought, lightness of death

No longer wronged by the contingent, the wails of the grieving,
Laughter and shrieks of the whirling months, I yield at most
To the malaise of old age, to the body’s loss of humors

Markings in a dead script on a calendar no longer in use

In a ruined palace my moving finger points to rusty locks hanging
From rows of the chained doors of long deserted chambers

Dimmed is the former chiaroscuro, my heart is monochrome
A late autumn landscape with gray fog shading into a pallid moon

In my ears the ageless sea confirms what I already know
I have for company only the void, the vacuum, the zero