Elegy

About a year has passed. I've returned to the place of the battle,

to its birds that have learned their unfolding of wings

from a subtle

lift of a surprised eyebrow, or perhaps from a razor blade

- wings, now the shade of early twilight, now of state

bad blood.

Now the place is abuzz with trading

in your ankles's remnants, bronzes

of sunburnt breastplates, dying laughter, bruises,

rumors of fresh reserves, memories of high treason,

laundered banners with imprints of the many

    who since have risen.

All's overgrown with people. A ruin's a rather stubborn

architectural style. And the hearts's distinction

from a pitch-black cavern

isn't that great; not great enough to fear

that we may collide again like blind eggs somewhere.

At sunrise, when nobody stares at one's face, I often,

set out on foot to a monument cast in molten

lengthy bad dreams. And it says on the plinth "commander

in chief." But it reads "in grief," or "in brief,"

or "in going under."

1985, translated by the author.