Another Birth

What I have dreamed through so many nights,
for that, as payment for some madness,
I have lost whatever there was to lose;
sometimes, seeing you in fever's delirium,
or seeing fever in your delirium,
whatever came to mind;
all of it I have always sent to you
in the soft light of eyes or the gentle trembling of lips.

Right after this, again and again, the moment our eyes met
how desperately I became,
and saw in my own eyes—
my one hand has lost the other hand, and there
however many times some anguish defeated imagination to find you,
exactly that many times, another birth arrived.