Memento

Translated by Arthur Boyars and Simon Franklin

Like a reminder of this life

of trams, sun, sparrows,

and the flighty uncontrolledness

of streams leaping like thermometers,

and because ducks are quacking somewhere

above the crackling of the last, paper-thin ice,

and because children are crying bitterly

(remember children’s lives are so sweet!)

and because in the drunken, shimmering starlight

the new moon whoops it up,

and a stocking crackles a bit at the knee,

gold in itself and tinged by the sun,

like a reminder of life,

and because there is resin on tree trunks,

and because I was madly mistaken

in thinking that my life was over,

like a reminder of my life—

you entered into me on stockinged feet.

You entered—neither too late nor too early—

at exactly the right time, as my very own,

and with a smile, uprooted me

from memories, as from a grave.

And I, once again whirling among

the painted horses, gladly exchange,

for one reminder of life,

all its memories.