Doom has come to you,
you who dwell in the land.
Ezekiel 7:7

Automobiles flow like droplets down the string of the highway,
then suddenly they're absorbed into subdivisions and courtyards,
the reinforced concrete gardens of hypermarkets. Water

doesn't wash anything clean, it insistently drums on the brow, seeking
the plumb-line; droplet asking droplet the way.
I turn onto my other side, here naked trees

flex themselves, as if trying to make their young branches
prop up the sky's support wall, on which weevils
are skillfully mimicking seagulls and a damp mark is just as

remarkably spreading to form an artificial rose.
I get up, wake up, switch on the TV; the world goes
back to the beginning.

Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones