It Was a Holiday

It was a holiday, but we turned away from the holiday.

Books lay on the table, we didn’t read them now.

In the distance was the great world, a world of love and betrayal,

unknown, unnamed, always, still completely new.

Those whom we’d known since childhood walked beside us

in silence, some vanished abruptly,

with a brief cry of fear—

like swallows, who are always frantic.

We were tired, but no one complained.

Nights were short, the dawns were transparent,

at evening orioles wept in the woods,

but we knew the streets and parks better.

We wandered slowly, looking carefully around us,

noting words in our memory—we thought:

we’ll have to write them down later.

We held hands, wading through the sand

of abandoned suburbs. Heavy trains

passed before us in the distance,

the ocean roared, and darkness.