And then what a wail in the mouth of the hearth,

a night of long rains on their march toward the city,

stirred in your heart the obscure birth of speech:

“… Of a luminous exile—and more distant already

than the storm that is rolling—how can I, O Lord,

keep the ways that you opened?”

“… Will you leave me only this confusion of evening—having,

for so long a day, nourished me on the salt of your solitude,”

“witness of our silences, of your shadow, and of the great blasts of your voice?”

—Thus you lamented in the confusion of evening.

But sitting by the window opposite the stretch of wall

across the way, having failed to resuscitate the lost splendor,

you would open the Book, and letting your worn finger

wander among the prophecies, your gaze far away,

you awaited the moment of departure,

the rising of the great wind that would suddenly tear you away,

like the typhoon, parting the clouds before your waiting eyes.