And if after so many words,

the word doesn’t survive!

If after the wings of birds,

the standing bird doesn’t survive!

It would be better, honestly,

to consume everything and be done with it!

To have been born in order to live off our death!

To lift ourselves up by our own disasters

from the sky to the earth,

watching for the right moment to blot out

our darkness with our shadow!

It would be better, frankly,

to consume everything and to hell with it!

And if after so much history, we succumb

not to eternity

but to these simple things,

like sitting at home or settling in to think!

And if we then discovered

all of a sudden that we’re living—to judge

by the height of the stars—off a comb

and the stains on a handkerchief!

It would be better, honestly,

to consume everything, of course!

They’ll say that we have

in one eye a lot of grief

and in the other eye, too, a lot of grief

and in both, wherever they look, a lot of grief …

So … It’s clear! So … Not a word!