Earth which I breathe in the heavy night,
earth for hunger, earth for thirst;
my soft warm breast is filled with blood,
my lungs are clogged with earthen air.

Eyes in which the sunlight flowed
like the golden glow in Danae's womb, reborn
as a golden son whose eyes, destined to
gleam luminously, corrupted into mud.

Earth hauled by me, bulk of ground
scooped out with fingers to a corridor
behind which runs another corridor so long
that, in further soil, it ends in soil.

Dug in a grave, speechless, drab,
feeding on roots and worms and seeds,
while there are blue-green peacocks,
horses, deer with antlers, nightingales.

Translated by Dennis O'Driscoll