The man alone listens to the calm voice
with half-closed eyes, as if a breath
were blowing on his face, a friendly breath
rising–astonishing–from a lost time.
The man alone hears the ancient voice
that his fathers, in their day, heard, clear
and collected, a voice that like the green
of ponds and hills deepens with evening.
The man alone knows a shadow voice,
caressing, that rises up in the calm tones
of secret springs: he drinks it intently,
eyes closed. Its presence isn’t apparent.
This is the voice that once stopped the father
of his father, and on back through dead blood.
The secretive voice of a woman that comes
from a doorway at the falling of dusk.
—translated by Geoffrey Brock
Complete Poems 1930-1950
Read Selected Poems