18
Walking Backwards
I spoke
of dead bodies under endless
November nights and I waited
but nothing happened.
I fled without realizing I fled,
dates near and far written on water
I swallowed in small sips.
Below, a finger, tense, severe,
pointing at me from the sea.
I left everything I knew as mine.
Days past became shock waves,
forms of gloom the future dawns.
I’ve seen you look at me
five hundred times
but look at me again upright against
noon clarity. I’m not a visitor
from the world,
I am the world!
The lamp’s fire is no more beautiful
than the light of a bonfire.
I’ve see thousands
of men dumped in a single grave,
and flowers blooming
on that grave, and rain,
and boats in the distance,
then a desolate, gloomy wasteland
and someone walking
backwards forever.
I’ve seen this and kept silent.