After Sending a Letter to the Wrong Address

 
I've loved someone nameless, addressless—a love without place…
For so long my letters have gone astray, delivered to other names.
I've made some mad mistakes, swept up in passion's tide,
at midday when damp winds pushed me, this shore churned uselessly wild.


Today I understand quite well what love is,
and what is mere affection. What begging means,
what compassion is—I know that too.
What belongs to the moment's emotion, I grasp; where mere flesh enters, I grasp that as well.
I know this too: love is only exchange everywhere, only investment!


Suddenly I see you belong to another house, another voice!
I see this quietly and accept it.
Again when I see you've bound even your heart
to another house, another heart,
then this mind hurls questions: so…
where exactly am I?
Do I exist at all? Who am I to you?
This "me"—where exactly does it fit in you?
If all of you is elsewhere, then where does this "me" even remain?
Where near you do I keep my self?
I see I am nowhere in you at all!


So do I send letters to wrong addresses every single day?
Filling error-boxes? Through wrong postmen's mistaken calls?
Is love then such a cheap thing?
That saying "I love you" whenever, however
finishes off the whole obligation?


Let all love remain fallen!
Let it tangle in dust, wrap itself in sand! Whatever happens!
Let it lie there untouched, but let the debt survive!
Let love not be so easily won!