Remember me telling you: when the boats whistle don't be in the port.
But the day that was leaving was ours and we didn't want to ever let it go
A bitter handkerchief will greet the tedium of return.
It really was raining a lot and the streets were deserted
With a delicate, vaguely autumnal flavor
Closed windows and people so forgotten
- Why did they all leave us? Why did they all leave us?
I was clasping your hands
And there was nothing strange in my cry.

. . . One day we'll leave noiselessly and we'll roam
Through roaring towns and over desolate seas
With but one desire burning on our lips
It is love that we sought and they denied it to us
You forgot about our tears, our joys and our memories
Greeting while sails rippling in the wind
And maybe there's nothing else left for us to remember.

The anguished Why heaves up in my soul
I suck in the air of loneliness and desertion
I knock on the walls of my damp prison and I don't expect an answer
No one will ever touch the extent of my affection and sadness.

And you're waiting for a letter which doesn't come
A far-off voice revolves in your memory and fades away
While a mirror gloomily measures your face
Our lost ignorance, our lost wings.

Translated by Philip Ramp