Old Oak

Walter William Safar

In the shadow of solitude now I see Your eyes,
that so faithfully carry about the light
through my thoughts so dark,
and the pen trembles in the hand,
waiting for the prodigal son's acknowledgement.

My one and only, acknowledgements arrive in solitude's embrace,
just like tears, and where there is a tear, there is love,
always faithful and unbribable, invisible but so real
that you can touch it with thoughts
and with the fiery breath in the infinity of solitude.

I admit to using my verses as ransom for my guilt,
(and guilt is my silence),
and I listen to the rumor
that perpetually, like a bat,
whirls across the lonely poet's street.
They say that me and You,
my one and only,
are fantasy, but a pen immersed in ink.

But You know, don't You,
that me and You are perfectly real, full of wishes,
dreams and memories.
My one and only, I am listening to the whisper of the wind
in this warm, dreamy summer night...
It is silent, horribly silent without You,
and the wind's whisper is dying down, farther away, oh so far,
as if called by death to its black hearse,
and I have waited for so many days, months and years to appear,
to bring Your voice to me,
gentle, soft, warm and yearning,
but it is so silent, oh so silent now,
that I can hear the screams of solitude
chase away memories
into this warm summer night.

my one and only, I am standing in the shadow of the dignified oak,
and I am looking into his empty sleepiness,
as if its playfulness left along with You,
it is silent like the wind.
Its dear, green, eternally waking young leaves,
who used to whisper in Your vicinity, untrammeled and confidential,
are completely silent now, completely dead.

Now I am trembling in the shadow of our oak,
fearfully looking at it as it drags its dignified old face along the ground,
its memories are as lively as mine.
Once, yes, once the memories,
who live so inaudibly,
shall become so weak,
so humanly weak,
that they shall find their dark home
next to our wooden crosses.