Stroller

Co-translator: W.N. Herbert

Whether the golden fish sing about the rise and fall of the city or not
a line of swans on the riverbank study the book of their feathers
whether they model girls with mirrors or not
the stroller's self is filled completely by the sound of the wind
led by a pitch-dark street
towards this stretch of marshland    where feet sink in an inch
the banks overflow with green which knows winter's weakness only too well
after the rain    the grassblades kneel on broken knees
one cloud invents an eclipse
the horizon watches him abruptly change between light and dark
breeding a night
in which a wild goose calls him continuously
towards this act of forgetting
feeling softly swallowed by the valley
feeling he has already become the valley    an empty willow
which throws out a womb in a golden explosion endlessly giving birth to the sky
listening to the wooden fence shout in the wind
so nailed to death it stops the day
he arrives at the shared wetness of water and blood
where drowning waits    the chattering future a little bar
with a locked door    he is the entire city holding a stone cold cup
as though planted, panting
walking further to be buried in the skeleton of an old iron bridge
walking impossibly further    rusty blood-red bushes
burst through his window    ghost-like sunlight appears once
revealing the swollen dark water-level settled over his head
the drowned landscape is here
in the dark the separated
lonely hanging step is here