Averno
Excerpts
You die when your spirit dies.
Otherwise, you live.
You may not do a good job of it, but you go on,
something you have no choice about.
When I tell this to my children
they pay no attention.
The old people, they think
this is what they always do:
talk about things no one can see
to cover up all the brain cells they're losing.
They wink at each other;
listen to the old one, talking about the spirit
because he can't remember anymore the word for chair.
It is terrible to be alone
I don't mean to live alone—
to be alone, where no one hears you.
I remember the word for chair.
I want to say—I'm just not interested anymore.
I wake up thinking
you have to prepare.
Soon the spirit will give up—
all the chairs in the world won't help you.
Think of it: sixty years sitting in chairs. And now the mortal spirit seeking so openly, so fearlessly—
To raise the veil.
To see what you're saying goodbye to.
I stood a long time, staring at nothing.
After a bit, I noticed how dark it was, how cold.
A long time—I have no idea how long.
Once the earth decides to have no memory
time seems in a way meaningless.
You get on a train, you disappear.
You write your name on the window, you disappear.
There are places like this everywhere,
places you enter as a young girl,
from which you never return.
The field was covered with snow, immaculate.
There wasn't a sign of what happened here.
You didn't know whether the farmer
had replanted or not.
Maybe he gave up and moved away.