though each new year brought in new waves

of birds that flew past the old stupa,

whose gilded gold had begun to peel.

Where the river bent towards the ravine,

a bridge, suspended like silence

at a grave conversation.

Some nights, when the last lamp

was killed, the unpredictable moon

betrayed some white, and some grey

owls hooted; afterwards everything paled,

like dust on paper.

I was elsewhere, far

from the plateau; I couldn’t tell

why these mountains had looped

to cut me off. That night I closed my eyes,

imagining a highland night above this city,

until the first sunlight fell

punctually to the boom of my clock,

and I woke up, and I woke up

lost for what I had given up.