To its far end Monday
is full of holes and small crosses of dust.
November 23
Blankets spread on the barbed wire
others on the trees and on the three crippled guns.
The blankets have their own language
they speak better than people do
they hide neither the separation nor their differences
nor their solitude nor their warmth.
Still, they sit and talk on the same barbed wire
and this is what gives them the same stance
like that of eyes over water and bread.
The field guard’s dog knows us now
he chews through his rope and comes over to us.
And when we feed him
and when we talk to him
and when Barba Anastis picks the ticks off him in the sunshine
then the blankets become alike
so alike that you no longer know which is another’s and which yours.
And that he understands more than anyone
which is why he lies on his back and shakes his legs in the air
and his great tail becomes a dust-cloth
shaking the dust off the years and off our hands.
Dick, Dick, rascal Dick,
can you lend me your tail for a bit?
Because it’s not easy, not easy at all
to say thank you, to say I’m hopeful again –
you know that, dog, and that’s why I love you.
Oh, enough, stop your tail,
I can’t bear it any longer, stop I say,
Oh, don’t you see?
DIARY OF EXILE II
November 24, 1948
Day of stone, words of stone.
Caterpillars crawl up the wall.
A snail, house on its back
appears in its doorway
it might stay, might go.
Everything is as it is.
It’s nothing.
That nothing is not soft.
It’s made of stone.
Everything was forgotten before it was said.
And silence is no refuge.
The stool has its patience.
The rain comes
washes the birds’ tiles
assumes the weight of the unspeaking.
The toothbrush is sad
like all things.
We pretend not to see.
We light the lamp.
November 25
Our people are far away.
The letters are few.
The flies are dying of cold.
We watch them fall to the ground.
Later we sweep them up.
November 26
This cold makes things hard for us.
The water is freezing, our food is freezing.
The sun white, flush to the windowpanes
a sun of snow and old stamps.
Only the pitchers hold
something of home and memory.
A hand that walks through the air
with needle and thread
is an episode with no continuation.
On the wall, the still shadow
of a voice that said nothing.
A conversation with a broken arm
a broken gramophone record
a moon in the frozen water
the nighttime chair.
Sleep is slow.
So snuff out the lamp.
I can’t bear for there to be light
when I can’t see.
November 27
An order on the kitchen’s wooden door.
We had decided to content ourselves with little.
Saturday came to a close
with a rusted tin moon.
A dog-cloud gnaws at our sleep.
On Sundays we always have a headache.
The smoke rises from within.
The cigarette is a pretext.
We eat, we sweep, we sleep.
The blind man, wakeful
gropes the air with his hands.
November 28
The deck of cards has no numbers.
The jack is unarmed.
The queen chews mothballs.
We escaped behind a word.
The other side
was nothing
but an overcoat buttoned to the neck.
November 29
Censored postcards. Snow.
I remember a pair of boots
full of snow.
I want to give objects a meaning
they don’t have.
A man with his beard
a table
not a tree.
The doorknob was warm
once
like a hand.
But on that night and the other
was the same stammering moon.
There’s time, we used to say, for mistakes
for repentance.
It’s enough if stronger trees come.
No. No.
Close the shutters.
There’s no more telling lies.
November 30
When the snow melts
we might hear our voices.
Mightn’t we?
December 1
You don’t find a moment to look
though for days you’ve thought
of looking
at the bulls’ shadow in the cloud
at the girl shoveling manure
at certain faces of the hills
in relation to the barbed wire.
Phases of wind in the wind.
Forget about words.
Carry the dead on doors
quickly, quickly, quicker still.
The room is bare.
The surgeon’s plastic gloves
have holes in the them.
I can see his fingers.
Old newspapers
tangled in the dried-up cotton plants.
A dog cuts through the wind
with its nose.
A week’s worth of trash
bones, snow, poems
under the bed.
December 2
The sky is a hole.
We don’t fit in.
Sleeplessness. The cigarette. The wind.
I don’t want to speak.
Who could hear like this?
December 3
The bread grew moldy, and the years.
Say something light enough
for these hands to lift.
Things don’t happen
as you expect them to.
The cloud isn’t always
a faithful dog.
And the most hidden key
one day is lost.
December 4
Sheep, sheep of cold weather
little poem
take my hand.
The dawn has a thorn
and a stool.
At least until evening let’s believe.
Take off your shoes, moon.
I can’t fall asleep lying on my back.
But if I turn onto my side I’ll hurt.
The door is open.
I can’t leave.
December 5