translated by Louis Bourne

I asked the rocks. (They

Know about this. They had

Their humanity kindled

When they lived.) I wanted

To pass like a blazing

Hurricane, like a blind

Stampede of buffalo

Over the past, to burn

Its remains, hurling

Over them ashes and oblivion,

Death and silence…

I asked the rocks. (They

Know about this.) They never said:

“Eat out your heart,

Be the bursting moment

That wipes out all that never

Could be for you. If you’re a man,

Keep standing, tear at

Life, but in silence

Like us, watching

The centuries decline,

The seas hurling at us

Their silver arrows…”

I asked the rocks. (They

Know about this. They had

Their humanity kindled

When they lived.) I wanted

To pass like a blazing

Hurricane, like a blind

Stampede of buffalo.

But I felt an irresistible

Urge to cry.  I thought

It better to attack,

Fall on the enemy,

Like thunderbolt, destroy

What now can never

Be wiped out.

I asked the rocks. (They

Know about this.  They dress

In eternity.  They watch

The centuries decline, the waters

Heading to their rest,

The heavens to their silence,

The sands to their night,

Man to his inevitable

Loneliness.)

I asked the rocks. Then

I slept. The moon rose.

It dressed me in blue. Bestowed

Its calm. Then everything

Was simple, like death

Foreseen.