LXI

    Tonight I get down from my horse, 
before the door of the house, where 
I said farewell with the cock's crowing.
It is shut and no one responds. 

    The stone bench on which mama gave birth 
to my older brother, so he could saddle 
backs I had ridden bare, 
through lanes, past hedges, a village boy; 
the bench on which I left my heartsick childhood 
yellowing in the sun ... And this mourning 
that frames the portal? 

    God in alien peace, 
the beast sneezes, as if calling too; 
noses about, prodding the cobbles. Then doubts,
whinnies, 
his ears all ears. 

    Papa must be up praying, and perhaps
he will think I am late. 
My sisters, humming their simple, 
bubblish illusions, 
preparing for the approaching holy day,
and now it's almost here. 
I wait, I wait, my heart 
an egg at its moment, that gets blocked. 

    Large family that we left 
not long ago, no one awake now, and not even a candle 
placed on the altar so that we might return. 

    I call again, and nothing. 
We fall silent and begin to sob, and the animal 
whinnies, keeps on whinnying. 

    They're all sleeping forever, 
and so nicely, that at last 
my horse dead-tired starts nodding 
in his turn, and half-asleep, with each pardon, says 
it's all right, everything is quite all right.