“Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.”

“If suddenly you do not exist,If suddenly you are not living,I shall go on living.I do not dare,I do not dare to write it,if you die.I shall go on living.”

“You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me.”

“I want you to knowone thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.”

“Where were you then?Who else was there?Saying what?Why will the whole of love come on me suddenlywhen I am sad and feel you are far away?”

“A song of despairThe memory of you emerges from the night around me.The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.In you the wars and the flights accumulated.From you the wings of the song birds rose.You swallowed everything, like distance.Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!I made the wall of shadow draw back,beyond desire and act, I walked on.Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.There was the black solitude of the islands,and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain mein the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!How terrible and brief my desire was to you!How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.Oh the mad coupling of hope and forcein which we merged and despaired.And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.And the word scarcely begun on the lips.This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!From billow to billow you still called and sang.Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,lost discoverer, in you everything sank!It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hourwhich the night fastens to all the timetables.The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.Deserted like the wharves at dawn.Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!”

“Love.Because of you, in gardens of blossomingFlowers I ache from the perfumes of spring.I have forgotten your face, I no longerRemember your hands; how did your lipsFeel on mine?Because of you, I love the white statuesDrowsing in the parks, the white statues thatHave neither voice nor sight.I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice;I have forgotten your eyes.Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound toMy vague memory of you. I live with painThat is like a wound; if you touch me, you willMake to me an irreperable harm.Your caresses enfold me, like climbingVines on melancholy walls.I have forgotten your love, yet I seem toGlimpse you in every window.Because of you, the heady perfumes ofSummer pain me; because of you, I againSeek out the signs that precipitate desires:Shooting stars, falling objects.”