Along my street, these steady steps resound
Year after year: my friends are slowly leaving.
The all-absorbing lightlessness around
Finds ease in seeing me alone and grieving.

O loneliness! Indeed, your touch is cold!
Of pointless reassurances regardless,
The metal pair of compasses you hold,
Encircling me with unforgiving hardness.

Let me tiptoe beneath your rustling trees,
My timid gesture bridging through the distance,
Discover foliage, bring it close, and breathe,
And feel the bliss of castaway existence.

Give me the silence of your reading room,
Your chamber music, elegant and soothing,
And in my wisdom, I’ll relinquish soon
Those still alive and those whom I am losing.

Of doleful wisdom I shall learn the worth,
The hidden sense of objects will come clear,
And in an intimate embrace, the earth
Will tell the secrets of her childhood years.

And at that time, from darkness that descends,
From pain, from ignorance of days so olden,
I’ll see the graceful features of my friends
Coming to light – and then again dissolving.