I sought the extremes, both of grief
And of a short name written on many windows.
I closed the rotted shutters of many houses, now, today
And from their forgotten promises and every Judas kiss
With which I was betrayed. All decayed, for her
For me. Not our regret, not our feeling.
Not the approaching hum of the bees.
Doubt weighed, but straight across time
Somewhere, someone will remember.

While she's left behind and unrecognizable behind glass
For years extracting despair from wanderers
And the past from many pious women.
My word shall become, my word shall be:
Pain in the distortion of pain, and restlessness
In our disbelief, our inexorable sojourn.
Just once, but perhaps as lonely as before.

Dying, while I move like a stranger
In a world that was once mine.
Dying, as symbols must always blur
I too will stare at time between the folds
Of the last sheet, feel with lifeless hands
How memories shrink, for good and fatally.
I shall forget the decay of all things, slowly
Giving in to all the nocturnal names
That I once coined for my suspicion and my love.

Translation Paul Vincent