Algerian Diary

translated by Marcus Perryman and Peter Robinson

1
Above where from tower
to tower permission
now hollow, leaps and is returned,
the who-goes-there of the hour,
-just as below from turret to turret
from the uprights of the compound
morrocan guards calling to each other-
who goes there in the gloomy midnight's
quick snowflakes, who misses
the final toast on the wind's
dreadful black thresholds
of waiting, who goes . . .
A wretched picture it is
ours, not come to light.
And of oblivion only
...