Lines of verse shift only within the head,
as one voice fades, it moves out of the way,
but where's the way, and where's he who would take it?

We were listening to the birds out in the garden,
and on the island, the ocean all around us,
there was a voice - but whose, I still don't know.

Why does it come between us? Snow, ever more snow,
and who knows what it covers, surely
once it turns to slush, then, maybe then - go easy.

Something is tugging at me again. I walk around
stiff-shouldered. The time of reckoning will come.
Does this and that add up? To what? disaster?

But time rejoices with its castrated heart,
in blind radiance - the delight of deadlock -
stands still, and stops - let's leave it at that for now.

Translation: George Szirtes