I’m alive and at daybreak I’ve startled the stars.
My companion continues to sleep unaware.
All companions are sleeping. The day is a clear one
and stands sharper before me than faces in water.
In the distance an old man is walking to work
or enjoying the morning. We aren’t so different,
we both breathe the same faint glimmer of light
as we casually smoke, beguiling our hunger.
The old man, too, must have a body that’s pure
and vital – he ought to stand naked facing the morning.
Life this morning flows out over water
and in sunlight: around us the innocent splendor
of water, and all the bodies will soon be uncovered.
There’ll be a bright sun and the sharpness of sea air
and the harsh exhaustion that beats down in sunlight
and stillness. And my companion will be here –
a shared secret of bodies, each with its own voice.
There’s no voice to break the silence of water
at dawn. And neither is anything moving
beneath this sky. There’s only a star-melting warmth.
One shudders to feel the morning trembling
so virginally, as if none of us here were awake.
—translated by Geoffrey Brock
Complete Poems 1930-1950
Read Selected Poems