English version by Christopher Logue.
Tonight I write sadly.
Like, for example,
‘Little grasshopper,
shelter from the midnight frost,
in the scarecrow’s sleeve.’
Advising myself.
The night wind throbs in the sky.
Tonight I write so wearily:
write for example,
I wanted her
and times it was me she wanted.
Write, the rain we watched last fall
has it fallen this year too?
She wanted me
and at times it was her I wanted
yet it has gone that want.
What’s more I do not care.
It is more terrible than my despair
over loosing her.
The night always vast
grows enormous without her
and my comforter’s tongue,
talking about her,
is a red fox barred by ivory.
Well, does it matter I loved
too weak to keep her?
The night ignores
such trivial disputes.
She is not here, that’s all.
Far off someone is singing
and if to bring her back,
I look and I run to the end of the road
and I shout, shout her name
My voice comes back the same,
but weaker.
This night is the same night,
it whitens the same trees,
casts the same shadows.
It is as dark, as long, as deep
and as endurable as any other night.
It’s true, I don’t want her -
but perhaps, I want her.
Love’s not so brief
that I forget her so.
Nevertheless I shall
forget her.
And, alas, as if by accident
a day will pass,
in which I shall not think about her
even once:
and this the last line
I shall write her.
