Separation

Life will one day return to normal.

There’s nothing that time can’t tame,

and her name,

on the page of the daily journal,

will dissolve on the fiery tongue of the flame.

Somehow, I’ll have to adjust and forget her.

Love is neither eternal nor constant.

We’ve parted.

I’m sure it’s all for the better.

Her features will fade with the russet sunset.

Why do I lie to myself? It’s never that easy.

My head is tolling like a church bell tower.

Bumping into the trees,

I’m coughing and wheezing,

and so far it’s been only a half an hour.

The onlookers watch, not daring to help me...

Get out of my way, I’m a raging elephant!

Don’t you hear how my soul is yelping,

gripping the bars

of the trembling skeleton?

Don’t you see how I’m stumbling,

sad and wearied,

with the weight of affection around my ankle?

Clearly, it’s love... clearly

it’s love that has me this mangled.

I no longer believe in the power of calendars,

time is no medicine for separation,

and hours scatter around like scavengers

eating, eating away my patience.

I must have a fever, I’m shaking and quivering,

Talking to no one, conversing out loud.

Isn’t that her

crawling across the ceiling?

hanging up overhead like a dismal cloud?

I’m hallucinating, I cannot escape her...

Leave me alone, don’t you see I’m grieving?

Her smile appears on the face of my neighbor.

She mocks me and whispers to me,

“Good evening.”

Wherever I turn, she appears to follow.

On every face, I seem to notice her grimace.

Everywhere that I look, I can see her shadow.

Look, up there!

up in the sky, she shimmers...

***

Look at the sun-rays, people!

Those are her stretching

fingers,

I am almost ready to leap now

toward her from the roof of my building.

Look how the sun is crashing

on the blade of the glowing horizon!

People, I’m stoned by this passion,

I am lost in light of her eyes now!

On the fork of a thousand roads,

drunk with the smell of the pines,

I wander

and hang my sorrowful notes

on the nerves of the telephone lines.

Hello?

Answer me!

Anybody?

What can extinguish my love’s scorching flame?

Every night, waiting for her, I cram my body

into the window frame.

You, who’ve had a lot to cope with,

whose lives have long turned sour and dire,

know that

the doors of my ribcage are always open,

come and sit by the fire!

Do you hear the thunder of my whisper?

That is merely love begging for help.

People,

I need her, I miss her!

In her absence, I’m losing myself...

These walls box me in.

Feeling lonely,

on the mattress, I curl like a snake,

and depression collapses upon me

with more force than the body can take.

Burdened by the weight of the silence,

I recall from the past,

gasping,

and abruptly, two overcast eyelids

shut at once with a bang of a casket.

But even in dreams, her vision,

appears in the night and remains...

and I catch

her brief apparition,

with the butterfly net of my veins.

***

Though this bliss may appear unending,

both, the night and the dream must cease.

She is grinning at me,

enchanting,

as she vanishes into the mist...

The gray beard of the mist fills the alley,

raindrops beat on the drum

of my window.

Autumn mimics my sweet melancholy

and transforms itself into winter.

Homeless winds sing from under the bridges,

as the morning embraces the land.

There, I ramble,

feeding the pigeons

out of the palm of my hand...

Once more, I am one with the landscape.

Like the valley, I’m covered with frost.

Like the shivering branches, my hands shake.

Like the trees,

I’m standing exposed.

Have you noticed your son, Mother Nature?

In you sight, I still wander perplexed.

Separated from love,

I am raging,

Is it true that the spring will come next?

Dejected,

I’ve looked high and low,

tread the Milky Way searching for answers,

lost my way in the winding snow,

now I stray here,

homeless and senseless.

Here, I drift with the winds as I cast

my eyes to the skies,

starless and bottomless,

I can change! Let me sweep the debris of the past

under the carpets of puddles.

Goodness, I pray you,

I have to see her!

I cannot go on any further without her!

I’ve poured my soul into the cold receiver,--

Listen to me!

I cannot love any louder!

Listen... listen, up there! Do you hear me?!

You, angels, hovering up above me,

do not lie to me,

tell me sincerely,

could she possibly learn to love me?