I always walk barefoot
and the world is an eternal beach of damp sands
where there is no sea and no land,
only the part in which both lap at each other
like newly-wedded dogs.
It is their tongues that erase my footsteps
just after they have been uttered.
To march against the wind
is the wisdom of the exiled;
the wind is a demiurge from outside, from the moorlands —
it does not exist among the streets,
its hand is not laid on our back
to scatter our gait.
One must go toward it with a lifted face,
with clothing flattened by its claw, a total and austere
yearning that bears us along, with the timid, contained
happiness that bursts in a sigh.
It pulls at us, it pulls and pulls.
It is out there, it carries us, it takes us far,
it lays us waste and irradiates our hair
to make of us solar gods
with no need of borrowed light for the exact
post-empirical clarity of being
the light of the very eyes that behold us.
We see everything — do you see?
Chance events are maritime flowers
nesting in the stellar dust.
Perfumes dance like vibrating strings.
Caresses arrive from the nettles of thought
and kiss the footsteps that dare to go
beyond the caravans.
Yes. Now we see everything with the eyes of the wind.
Song of the Absent One, Fourth Deed, pp. 38-39