A weekday morning at the beginning Of another year. Quite cold and quite Silent. A wind from southwest Is only felt and not heard, for I had Raked its leafy tongue away yesterday.

A pair of small birds, wrens or titmice, Streak by and vanish into the fog. I take my right palm out of the pocket Of my Levis and follow it as it vanishes. I look down and my feet have already vanished.

I suppose birth, that first thing we forget To remember, that amorphous beginning From a fluid in the sac, is like this. I also suppose so is death, that final Unexplainable border we step across, step into.

You ask me about that country whose details now escape me, I don't remember its geography, nothing of its history. And should I visit it in memory, It would be as I would a past lover, After years, for a night, no longer restless with passion, With no fear of regret. I have reached that age when one visits the heart merely as a courtesy.

Translated by Agha Shahid Ali

On a country road we drove Back and forth, lost. The twin banks Of night, a reproach to that wandering With the barn owl and the firefly.

Then we stumbled upon the lane We didn’t see, and then onto the drive To disembark, under the watch Of countless stars, at a possibility Called home.