Luis Miguel Nava: Darkness

Darkness is beginning 

to dissolve our body,
like a bloody snow
falling from the sky

or like a stone that, falling
into a lake, opens it into
successive circles, some already
outside the water, right here in life.

Someone
in the midst of the landscape
brandishes a heater

while I, having just a handkerchief
for clothing,
cover my head with it to keep from dying.

Here everyone knows
that lakes start freezing at their edges
and man in his heart,

that light
rises from the void
and all we have left
is a discredited sun
in an indifferent sky,

darkness already wrapping
our bones, with death itself
seeming to serve as our skin,
like on a bat.

Luis Miguel Nava

(Portugal 1957-1995)