5

I don’t know if you loved me: I loved you
and that was all, and that was enough, and the days
made for me the tenderest angles.

I loved you with the hours and with the dream,
and sang of you, and you passed by, and it became April
and through you I knew the wondering of my flesh.

Yes, I loved you, slow and deaf,
the way withered things love one another,
the way one learns the language of absence.

Joan Fuster, Spain (1922-1992)

Translation Germain Droogenbroodt – Stanley Barkan