His caressing hand

over my body, followed --


too tensely by me.

I see the late and the early
people in lighted rooms
where the curtains are not closed

I see men in the twilight
penumbra of the morning
talking on the benches

in the circle of the square
that then starts singing
in the trees that live there

Everything keeps going on
from yesterday to tomorrow
without beginning and end

There is no direction
everything's going by itself
its divine way

The wall without end,

without gates and hope, carries --


many illusions.

I have a cold, and

I enjoy the drowsiness --


It gives me shelter.

Quarrels with father

are rotten: they're not allowed --


to have a bad end.

When young, I took the world
inside, filling me
And every day, fed
by age-wise women

I was happy to grow, greater
than Alexander the Great
Baruch and Master Kong
I married and had children

Homely and ordinary years
of peace and fulfilled wishes
It just continued, the people
with whom I spoke, the places

I kept coming, the classes
I started to have, the world
I handed out and the soul-
snips of myself

that I began to leave everywhere
to get empty of life
that stands still when it doesn't flow
to young bodies

This box is empty:

it is my life, it's my art --


of giving away.