Autumn Song

Paul Verlaine articulates the drying leaf

Thank you everyone for your heartfelt responses and comments for Jesse’s words for Cairo. Very comforting and also encouraging. A new season, a new chapter in life and much new work to be done. So, off I go, with a heart a bit lighter.

Autumn in Berlin

Autumn Song

A sighing begins
In the violins
Of the autumn-song,
My heart is drowned
In the slow sound
Languorous and long

Pale as with pain,
Breath fails me when
The hours toll deep.
My thoughts recover
The days that are over,
And I weep.

And I go
Where the winds know,
Broken and brief,
To and fro,
As the winds blow
A dead leaf.

Translated by Arthur Symons