From the Still Days

So ghostly are these late days

Just like the look of sick people, sent here

In the light. However, the night shades the muted lament

Of their eyes, toward which they already turn.

They probably smile and recall their celebrations,

How one is moved after songs, half forgotten,

And searches words for a sad gesture,

Which already grows pale in silence unmeasured.

So the sun still plays around ill flowers

And lets them shiver in the thin, clear airs

With a death-cool delight.

The red forests whisper and darken,

And more death-nightly the woodpeckers' hammering echoes

Just like a reverberation from airless crypts.