Winter has failed to take me by surprise.
I was forewarned by the morning darkness
and the obstinate silence in the trees,
the sickly light,
the early dusk.
And now I no longer go back to the sanctuary
of the hours I once found at my feet
nor do I know which sands to tread
nor yet what prayers to offer.
Winter has already come in the mirror
of a face that is hard to recognise,
of a body that stands and gazes at things
that someone unknown has placed so far from me
that touching them never reaches me
and, my hands gone numb, abandons.

Translated by Anna Crowe