At Home on the Precipice and in Heaven, Third Part

Here you can read the introduction, the first and second part of the cycle.

XI

Maybe there’s a heaven for it,

An alpha that no beta 

Follows, above all no o

Mega. Maybe there’s a 

Language for it that doesn’t fail

The recurring future

With luminaries in shadow

And hopes that give us their

Word. Maybe your death

Will lose its alphabet,

And the flock lose its birds. 

XII

I transform you and move forward

On the old trail, I’m your blood

Hound, as if out of my senses, I’ve got your 

Scent, the skin on your back in the vanilla

Aroma of a sauce, your invisible foot

Prints on a rain-sheltered 

Spot outside the house. Euphoria. Ikar and

Vetiver or Velvet Touch. My nose

Is dreaming what it’s missing. Come

The bed is freshly made and some

Where between sheet and mattress

Lie all those solitary hairs

That outlive every passion. 

XIII

Chosen by chance to breathe

At just this moment. With eyes wide open

And soles coming off. Chosen by 

Chance to love at just this moment:

Counted off all the blinks 

Of an eye, the yearning sentences fall

Between the lines. And the

Events yet to come? They’re

No longer marked on the calendar.

Chosen by chance to hope

At just this moment. To be. To wait. 

For hearts that are whole, for

Park benches occupied again, for

Sunlight that gets through, for the

Creaking of floorboards. The final

Bliss lies in the everyday

That stands up to death.  

XIV

They can’t take a thing from us. 

Not one night. Not the whispers

The meaningful glances. Not

The twenty years of togetherness,

Secrets and complicity.

They can’t drive a wedge

Between us, because you are you and

Finally you in our silence. 

Picture by picture we move through our

Eras, etching, enchantment. Existing 

On kisses, sea water and the

Firm footing of words, dancing 

Sculptures. Because you are you

XV

No, we did not believe in

Eternity, but in a far too 

Far-off death. In an indefinite

Later that leaves room for dreaming

Of a studio by the Wagram and

Thousands of books. Of quinces

And pears and a big table

That’s set for friends. 

This end was something we did not consider

Nor that the law would douse our

Desire, that our multi

Lateral promises would count for

Nothing. We held fast to the luck

Of synchronicity, to our ideas

Colours, forms, sentences, even if

We sometimes fell from our lives,

Impetuousor desperate

At home on the precipice and in heaven. 

Translated by Geoffrey C. Howes