I have always avoided speaking of me,
speaking myself. I wanted to speak of things.
But, in the selection of those things,
might there not be a speaking of me?
Might that modesty of speaking myself
not contain a confession,
an oblique confession,
in reverse, and ever immodest?
How pure or impure
is the thing spoken of?
Or does it always impose itself, impurely
even, on anyone wishing to speak of it?
How is one to know, with so many things
to speak or not to speak of?
And if the avoidance of speech
itself be a way of speaking of things?
Translated by Djelal Kadir