(from a cycle Five Love Letters)
Nothing is more visible
and nothing is more present than your absence:
not the childish whispers which I discovered
in the crops of the rain,
nor the hint of storm in the cobwebs
in little roadside bars,
nor aerial paths lit up by swallows,
nor that which acquires shape only my hearing,
nor my hearing while a belated cricket
winds up its nocturnal clock,
nor the birthpangs of the scattered seed,
nor the flaming fire on the cockerel’s head
while it runs from the shade that descends from the sky,
nor the space which remains to me between your hands,
between your two hot suns,
nor the snake which ruffles the top of the corn,
nor the snowdrifts and hailstorms in poppy fields,
nor the flame which raises like autumn mist
in the fields of pepper,
nor the love and hatred between key and padlock,
nor the hidden light in a purchased match;
nothing is more visible than the trail you left
before me, behind me, with me and in me.
Translated by: Ewald Osers