22

O in spite of Fate: the magnificent overflows

of our existence, spilling over into parks, —

or taking shape as stone men shouldering

tall portals, rearing up under balconies!

O the bronze bell, that daily lifts its cudgel

against the dull quotidian.

Or at Karnak that one column, that column

outliving temples almost eternal.

Today the abundances plunge by, the same ones,

but only as haste, out of the horizontal

yellow day into the dazzlingly exaggerated night.

But the frenzy passes and leaves no trace.

Arcs of flight through the air and those who made them:

perhaps all live on. But only as thought.