Zamira loves wolves.
I’d like to go with her to find them,
somewhere up on higher ground,
where the red oaks of Sotillo
drop their leaves into the streams,
where horses drink the ice
from frozen waterfalls
and people wait for snow
as if for benediction.
You and I are in this hospital,
waiting for death to come.
Not your death or my death,
but the death of those who gave us life.
Whom will they pass their deaths on to,
those who die, when they pass away?
You and I are waiting for the end,
for an empty limit,
while life shines and trembles between us
like a simple-hearted knife.
And in this waiting on the deaths of others,
we wait a little on our own deaths too.
Perhaps this is why Zamira loves the wolves.
Perhaps this is why I also want
to leave with her, to find them this December
somewhere up on higher ground,
in meadows that are more remote,
where she and I could see the thorns,
and bloody embers of the sun
among the purple willow trees.
For already we have wrapped our eyes
in a band of snow,
to not have to think any more,
to no longer be stupified
by the blazing light of operating rooms.
Zamira loves wolves.
She wants to flee this stone and glass labyrinth
of pain.
Paul Weinfield: Translations 