Who is this beside me in the deep of night?
How familiar this rhythm of breathing,
lying turned on one side just as I do,
a form both sharp and indistinct!
Who is it?
Almost always it returns to my room,
touches my bookshelf to see,
opens the fridge, fills a glass with wine,
pulls up a chair and sits comfortably...gets drunk!
I wander round and round, listening to its footsteps,
understanding some things, while others whoosh right over my head.
Sometimes it sets up my mosquito net!
Tidies my cluttered dressing table!
Rearranges the spoons and bowls in the meat safe!
Measures shirts without an iron!
On my clumsy hand's painting...
without asking, without telling, it sprinkles water!
At this lingering half-presence I am sometimes amazed,
sometimes utterly annoyed;
sometimes I give loneliness the perfect answer!
In this long game of hide-and-seek, these days it feels like my own,
it seems like my shadow or perhaps I am its shadow!
Yet I can never recognize it!
I circle right beside it, but cannot touch it!
I find it this way, then lose it again!
As a lioness is trapped by her cub's enchantment,
I too am trapped by its spell, yet
these blurring eyes can only
glimpse non-existence!
Forever beyond the reach of sight
remains my entire being!