Nocturne III —José Asunción Silva

 Nocturne III 

          A night
A night full of hushings, of the curled wool of perfume
     And incanting wing,
          A night
Where phantasmagoric glowworms bump in nuptial blackness,
At our own pace, linked together,
          Mute and glittering,
As if we could portend ruin,
And your hot fibers all slopped and tangled,
Along the path strung with flowers, which crosses emptiness,
          We walked,
          And the disc of silvery water
In tumbling azure splashed and laughed,
          And your shadow,
          Fine and dripping,
          And my shadow,
Which the rays of the moon nailed down
On the sad sands
Of the pathway, our shadows joined
And became one
          One
          One
And they became one horn of shadow!
And they became one horn of shadow!
And they became one horn of shadow!
            Tonight,
          Here I am, myself,
Filled with the black cakes of loneliness and of your death,
Separated from you by all—time, tomb, earth—
          And by the nothing
          Where no voice can reach;
          Mortally there and silent,
          Along the path I roamed,
And the dogs’ snapping at moonlight rang out
          At the splendor
          And the chirping
          Of the frogs—
A chill. It was the chill that in the tomb
Your face and hands sang with
          Under a starry vibrance
          Of funereal linens.
It was the grave’s face of pebbles, death’s slick,
          It was the coldness of nothing.
          And my shadow
          Frayed by wild silver,
          Walked alone,
          Walked alone,
          Walked alone amid nothings,
          And your shadow, trim and quick,
          Fine and dripping,
As in that luxuriant spring night expiring,
As in that night full of hushings, of the curled wool of perfume
     And incanting wing,
          Came and creased through mine
          Came and creased through mine
          Came and creased through mine…Oh the shadows fuse!
Oh the puzzle pieces of the shadows interlocking,
Oh the shadows chew through each other across zodiacs of sorrows
     And tears.

—José Asunción Silva (trans. Robert Fernandez)