i know the olive tree has been there
since the beginning of the world, inhabiting time
and intertwined with time, waiting for you.
i know the clouds are darkening in lilac and decide
to go on their slow rounds along the almost imperceptible
borders of sunset. i know you feel it must be so.
i know we can hear the irregular breath of the northwest
and what its saline syllables say, prolonging the shells and the resonance
echoing from the sea, while the colour of the clouds
will morosely turn from lilac into the mother-of-pearl of night
and we’ll hold hands in this atlantic silence. and i also know the wind
will slightly shiver as it summons the feeling gods
to that sacred tree whose greyish green foliage
will shudder from the stridency of the cicadas,
its companions since the warm beginning of the world,
of this world, yours and mine, now discovered, or yet to be reinvented
in a wisdom undergoing turmoil
in a tenderness verging on incandescence,
in a source of pure joy to which we’ll be giving various names,
things of the soul pledged to freedom
and to fantastic lunations and climbers.
i know how jasmine and honeysuckle rise
and how summer scents are tangled in dreams
around their delicate stems, in the twilight
musical root of dreams. i know i can find you there.