Estrangement

Within the threes I no longer can see any threes.
The branches are bare of leaves, carried off by wind.
The fruits are sweet, but empty of love.
They do not even satisfy.
What shall happen?
Before my eyes the forest flees,
the birds no longer sing to my ears,
and for me no pasture will become a bed.
I am full with time
yet hunger for it.
What shall happen?

Nightly upon the mountains the fires will burn.
Shall I head out, draw near to them all once again?

I can no longer see on any path a path.

Ingeborg Bachmann, Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems, Peter Filkins (trad.), Charles Simic (intr.), Zephyr Press, 2006.