M.V.
I love you now, Not secretly, but openly. I burn neither “following” nor “preceding” your rays. Laughing or crying, but I love you now, I do not want to in the past - and I do not know in the future. In the past - “I loved” - is sadder than any grave, - Everything tender within me is uninspired and hobbled. Even though the poet of poets said: “I loved you, and it is possible that love still...” That is how they talk about that which is thrown away, And in this there is a sadness and a condescension, As there is towards a king deposed from his throne. There is, in this sadness towards that which is past, A striving, where striving is lost, And as though there is a distrust of “I love” I love you now without promises of “Believe!” My time stands now - I will not slit my wrists! In time, in continuation, and now, In do not breathe in the past and I do not hallucinate the future. I wade through ford and stream to you - although rudderless! With ball and chain around my legs. Only do not mistakenly force me To add “I will” after “I love.” There is to this “I will”, however strange it may seem, A counterfeit signature, a rottenness, An escape route in case of emergency, A diaphanous poison at the very bottom of the glass, And, as if slapping the present, A doubt that I love you now. I look at the French dream with the plenitude of time, Where in the future - not like in the past - it is different. I am pilloried, I am summoned by the linguistic barrier. Oh, the difference in languages: it is not a position - it is failure! But we will both search for and find a way out. I love you in complicated times - And in the future and in the present past!
© Brunilda Fabritz. Translation, 2012