This is what I am, I'll say, to leave this written
excuse. This is my life.
Now it is clear this couldn't be done-
that in this net it's not just the strings that count
but the air that escapes through the meshes.
Everything else stayed out of reach-
time running like a hare
across the February dew,
and love, best not to talk of love
which moved, a swaying of hips,
leaving no more trace of all its fire
than a spoonful of ash.
That's how it is with so many passing things:
the man who waited, believing, of course,
the woman who was alive and will not be.
All of them believed that, having teeth,
feet, hands, and language,
life was only a matter of honor.
This one took a look at history,
took in all the victories of the past,
assumed an everlasting existence,
and the only thing life gave him was
his death, time not to be alive,
and earth to bury him in the end.
But all that was born with as many eyes
as there are planets in the firmament,
and all her devouring fire
ruthlessly devoured her until the end.
If I remember anything in my life,
it was an afternoon in India, on the banks of a river.
They were burning a woman of flesh and bone
and I didn't know if what came from the sarcophagus
was soul or smoke,
until there was neither woman nor fire
nor coffin nor ash. It was late,
and only the night, the water, the river, the darkness
lived on in that death.