I dry out words in the rain
until one day all that is left
is whiteness. The verandah dazzles
with emptiness, so I take them back in.

These are the fallen, scattered shards of life.
I pick them up and fit them all together
to make a pattern whose meaning can't be made out,
though in autumn
the leaves still fall in their season.

A rainy cloud hits
the edges of the garden,
and a bridge that has held apart
two riverbanks
comes in as if to speak.

As a rule few people travel this road.
It features on no map,
this road that leads nowhere.
But when, out for a walk, I pick something up,
the track appears: just as, when a leaf falls,
a seed somewhere is born out of that falling.



The literal translation of this poem was made by Lucy Rosenstein
The final translated version of the poem is by Bernard O'Donoghue