To K.H. When a blizzard powders the harbor, when the creaking pine leaves in the air an imprint deeper than a sled's steel runner, what degree of blueness can be gained by an eye? What sign language can sprout from a chary manner? Falling out of sight, the outside world makes a face its hostage: pale, plain, snowbound. thus a mollusc stays phosphorescent at the ocean's floor and thus silence absorbs all speeds of sound. Thus a match is enough to set a stove aglow; thus a grandfather clock, a heartbeat's brother, having stopped this side of the sea, still tick-tocks to show time at the other.
1975, translated by the author.
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