“Jubilation knows and Longing grants —only Lament still learns; with girlish handsshe counts the ancient evil through the nights.But suddenly, unpracticed and askant, she lifts one of our voice’s constellationsInto the sky unclouded by her breath.”

“Isn’t it time that these most ancient sorrows of ours grew fruitful? Time that we tenderly loosed ourselves from the loved one, and, unsteadily, survived: the way the arrow, suddenly all vector, survives the string to be more than itself. For abiding is nowhere.”

“Whom will you cry to, heart? More and more lonely,your path struggles on through incomprehensiblemankind. All the more futile perhapsfor keeping to its direction,keeping on toward the future,toward what has been lost.Once. You lamented? What was it? A fallen berryof jubilation, unripe.But now the whole tree of my jubilationis breaking, in the storm it is breaking, my slowtree of joy.Loveliest in my invisiblelandscape, you that made me more knownto the invisible angels.”

“We’re involved with flower, fruit, grapevine.They speak more than the language of the year.Out of the darkness a blaze of colors appears,and one perhaps that has the jealous shineOf the dead, those who strengthen the earth.What do we know of the part they assume?It’s long been their habit to marrow the loamwith their own free marrow through and through. Now the one question: Is it done gladly?The work of sullen slaves, does this fruitthrust up, clenched, toward us, its masters?Sleeping with roots, granting us only out of their surplus this hybrid made of mutestrength and kisses — are they the masters?”

“Suddenly, from all the green around you,something-you don't know what-has disappeared;you feel it creeping closer to the window,in total silence. From the nearby woodyou hear the urgent whistling of a plover,reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:so much solitude and passion comefrom that one voice, whose fierce request the downpourwill grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glideaway from us, cautiously, as thoughthey weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.And reflected on the faded tapestries now;the chill, uncertain sunlight of those longchildhood hours when you were so afraid.- Before Summer Rain”

“FALLING STARS: Do you remember still the falling starsthat like swift horses through the heavens racedand suddenly leaped across the hurdlesof our wishes -- do you recall? And wedid make so many! For there were countless numbersof stars: each time we looked above we wereastounded by the swiftness of their daring play,while in our hearts we felt safe and securewatching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,knowing somehow we had survived their fall.”

“We can so easily slip back from what we have struggled to attain, abruptly, into a life we never wanted; can find that we are trapped, as in a dream, and die there, without ever waking up. This can occur. Anyone who has lifted his blood into a years-long work may find that he can't sustain it, the force of gravity is irresistible, and it falls back, worthless. For somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work.”