How Long This Day of Mine

1.

Is it not shameful

to outlive one’s friends?

2.

Do the dead see, once they have settled

in their death,

what they left behind on the road

where they deserted us?

I wonder,

do they realize the loneliness of the road

once they have left it?

Do they laugh in their death

at our struggling in the strait they have already crossed?

Do they pity us when they look back at where we are?

Do they rejoice in their hearts, that they have made it?

Oh! How beautiful death is,

if the dead look back at the loneliness of the road

once they have settled.

3.

I look behind me

at each day that passes.

I find it calm, composed

and free,

staring at me with pity,

neither bored nor lonely.

This is how the day passes upon me.

It survives

and hands me coldly to another.

Am I now in another?

This is how the day passes without me

and clears behind me.

4.

Oh! How short life is,

and how long this day of mine!

(2/1/1993)