Kind of green, kind of gray, i.e.,

striated all over with rain,

and the linden fragrance, so heady,

that I can hardly—Let’s go!

Let’s go and abandon this garden

and the rain that seethes on its paths

between the flowers grown heavy,

kissing the sticky loam.

Let’s go, let’s go before it’s too late,

quick, under one cloak, come home,

while you still are unrecognized,

my mad one, my mad one!

Self-control, silence. But with each year,

to the murmur of trees and the clamor of birds,

the separation seems more offenseful

and the offense more absurd.

And I fear ever more that rashly

I may blab and interrupt

the course of the quiet, difficult speech

long since penetrating my life.

Above red-cheeked slaves

the blue sky looks all lacquered,

and pumped-up clouds

with scarcely discernible jerks move across.

I wonder, is there nowhere a place there,

to lie low—some dark nook

where the darkness might merge

with a wing’s cryptic markings?

(A geometrid thus does not stir

spread flat on a lichened trunk)

What a sunset! And once more tomorrow

and for a long time the heat is to last,

a forecast faultlessly based

on the stillness and on the gnats:

hanging up in an evening sunbeam,

their swarmlet ceaselessly jiggles,

reminding one of a golden toy

in the hands of a mute peddler.

How I love you! In this

evening air, now and then,

the spirit finds loopholes, translucences

in the world’s finest texture.

The beams pass between tree trunks.

How I love you! The beams

pass between tree trunks; they band

the tree trunks with flame. Do not speak.

Stand motionless under the flowering branch,

inhale—what a spreading, what flowing!—

Close your eyes, and diminish, and stealthily into the eternal pass through.