19 March 2024

Paradise.

Wyeth, Ides of March, 1974


I WANT to SLEEP

I shall be still stronger.
Still clearer, purer, so let
The sweet invasion of oblivion come on.
I want to sleep.

If I could forget myself, if I were only
A tranquil tree.
Branches to spread out the silence.
Trunk of mercy.

The great darkness, grown motherly,
Deepens little by little.
Brooding over this body that the soul —
After a pause — surrenders.

It may even embark from the endless world.
From its accidents.
And, scattering into stars at the last.
The soul will be daybreak.

Abandoning myself to my accomplice.
My boat,
I shall reach on my ripples and mists
Into the dawn.

I do not want to dream of useless phantoms,
I do not want a cave.
Let the huge moonless spaces
Hold me apart and defend me.

Let me enjoy so much harmony
Thanks to the ignorance
Of this being, that is so secure
It pretends to be nothing.

Night with its darkness, solitude with its peace.
Everything favors
My delight in the emptiness
That soon will come.

Emptiness, O paradise
Rumored about so long:
Sleeping, sleeping, growing alone
Very slowly.

Darken me, erase me.
Blessed sleep.
As I lie under a heaven that mounts
Its guard over me.

Earth, with your darker burdens.
Drag me back down.
Sink my being into my being:
Sleep, sleep.

Jorge Guillen

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