HOME OF ROSES

”I dwell in a lonely house I know

That vanished many a summer ago…”

Robert Frost

… Which burnt down the trees and died away then,

And returned lighter into nightly limestone.

The fields reunite with the house-dream

And no wall was built by that time,

In this space bordered by the memories

Of roses long passed away

That still grow up the walls.

Their purple breath burns in the air.

The rain ceased,

And the birds return to the cellars

Together with all their once sad songs.

The hands heal of a sudden

And the scars melt strangely under the gaze.

In this house-sapphire,

An absent building

Of one ancient and such a sad dream,

Which dives out before sunrise

To welcome all.

The night throws a herd of phantoms;

everything the gaze can fix

is alive and watches from the dark.

All ways change into heavy people with heavy trod.

They sing different songs, yet one bird is heard -

It is the night that pours in from everywhere

So that a different night can emerge from within

Where everything shines,

A night which nothing can ever leave.

This pensive silence

Of the instant before dawn eternally lasting -

It can say itself better than the death of the grass,

It is more healing than the breath of all fire;

In this night of quiet smother

Things crawl and return to their creator,

Stumble over mountains,

And for their happy death

The twilight changes into a happier ember.