I who am no-one

Truth is no more
than a skeleton: my room shouts.

If I came back as I went out
—intact none the worse for wear—
I should have made the trip in vain.

Among you I have passed my time
counting up to mountains.

Then I lost my memory of numbers
in the chaos of umbrage and umbles.

Dressed in the impalpable robe of sounds
I contemplated lengthily the mountains.

The flowers inclined toward every light.

I prostrated myself beneath the flowers
using no term in which I were not dead.

I who am no-one—me: nothingness.

Ion Caraion
tr. after the French of Vahé Godel