To Adam Zagajewski
The history of solitude is long.
It’s made up of a string of individual ones
That resemble one another like blades of grass.
And still each one in its heart
Has its mouse or mole.
Each speaks with one of the dead languages
The way a lake speaks with its silence.
The truth is to be found somewhere thereabouts,
It sneaks up on us like nightfall
Between the ancient trees
That give the appearance of being human beings.
But they are absent,
Busy with something else.
It’s good the way it is now.
I can turn and see the forest
Walking after me foot by foot
Like a sleepwalker in a dream.
That happens toward daybreak
When the patches of fog one calls mist
Burn and rise toward the sun.
There are only slits left,
Ripped curtains
Through which it is possible to pass
From the Other side,
To get hold of one’s memoirs.
While the trees still dream
And the grass dreams.
It’s just as if one were awake
With nothing to lament over.
EN 
MK