bells

god knows how long
I have sought my way,
and how many villages
I have entered
and passed through
as if they were ghosts,
without noticing anybody,
any house alive.

who could describe
how much snow,
how deep cold
had accumulated
on all those inner paths
that I have crossed
and whose very existence
probably vanished
at my transient departure.

all I remember
are the many presences,
aligned like trees
on both sides of the roads.

they were naked,
turned into their inner structure
of branches
and helpless expectation,
like the faces and bodies
of the condemned.

strange, I thought,
this usually happens in films,
in dreams,
when everybody awaits
the procession
of some majestic power
about to appear.

has the writing
so much influence
on the fog,
so much ascendancy over
the absences,

or am I just like a ghost myself
passing through the roads
without even listening to
a bell in the distance,
or a sign in my vanishing
footprints?



voj 2007

photo: Evita Alle
"village"