The Old Women Of The Ocean

To the solemn sea the old women come

With their shawls knotted around their necks

With their fragile feet cracking.

They sit down alone on the shore

Without moving their eyes or their hands

Without changing the clouds or the silence.

The obscene sea breaks and claws

Rushes downhill trumpeting

Shakes its bull's beard.

The gentle old ladies seated

As if in a transparent boat

They look at the terrorist waves.

Where will they go and where have they been?

They come from every corner

They come from our own lives.

Now they have the ocean

The cold and burning emptiness

The solitude full of flames.

They come from all the pasts

From houses which were fragrant

From burnt-up evenings.

They look, or don't look, at the sea

With their walking sticks they draw signs in the sand

And the sea erases their calligraphy.

The old women get up and go away

With their fragile bird feet

While the waves flood in

Traveling naked in the wind.

translated by Jodey Bateman