I shall follow and remain like a silent choir
in the space of god all the preordained day
alongside the shifts of the clear winter day
as alongside soot
but time is of itself self-created
hurled into the world snow whirls
round the monastery gates
and the inevitable passers-by
seem now support from without
but the level of the century is already fixed
and the level of fame demands
that the face be turned toward quietness
and not a book but an atlas of passions
is preserved in quiet on the desk
but like soot the year will touch the houses
in the old century where books seem torn up
and any of the pages will demand
lines of cutting and folding inward
across my sleeves
with the cold and the window nearby and outside
the snowdrifts the gates the houses
1962