The troglodytes have returned to the mists of the Meuse
and the open letters on the table must be read
once more before the dawn’s dew
finds in your absence the structure of an aberrant hardness
like the atmosphere that covers the old swamps. Still
among the dirty quasars of your permanent ancestry,
dull like a knife rescued from the mud, the nights
have given their honey to the cold and in Rotterdam
five hundred types of heavy metals
are carried in barges towards the Atlantic,
where the nights still hide insensitive
imperatives. Listen to me: where there is no rest
we will remain quieter than the watchmen,
attentive to any trace of the first
salvations. But you must know that five hundred oxen
have been lost and that in the caves of the titans
great banquets are celebrated, but salvation
is not there. Those who know the planes and edges of the terrain
trace paths through the ambushes and have reached
an uncertain region accessible
through a mountain. The houses from there look like flowers,
and the flowers knot together like chrysalises of iridescent
and zigzagging domes. Be careful. This is the season
in which the untamed animals fall into pits
of tangled brambles, for now that terrible celestial dragon
that no one has yet seen is shedding its skin,
and the sharpness of sulfur and the perfection of glass
fall upon the nitrogen and the black leather. Still whirlpools
of whiskey and tobacco. Blocks. Like large metallic plates
or last gates. And the old friends of the pyramids greet
and the angels fly over the dense promontories,
dazzling and drunk. They are the kings of life.