Now I dissolve totally in the ashen light,
Chronicles Ashen like thick dust on a hot day;
Writing chronicles, my hand slowly dissolves,
Beside the mist, all space is filled with words,
With words, like winds, thick, like a cutting axe,
And my hand, my beloved hand has totally dissolved away.

Without a hand, I don’t know; what will become of me?
Without writing chronicles, I don’t know; can one live without fire?
Without a good, crackling fire? This hand is dissolving,
Slowly fading like snow in May,
O God! This thick powder smothers me like sawdust,
Only the bones of my hand are left, only my eyes in my head.

I cannot live without writing chronicles, chronicles in dark days
I was born as an experiment, and now am dissolving.
I do not want to vanish, I do not want to, and only the bones of my hand remain.
Phosphorus falls from the marrow, and my fingers are bone-flutes,
The flutes of my fingers jump in the coarse sand.

I was once born by the sea, like a little ball,
I grew in hope like a little ball of light,
I am now totally dissolving, the threads slowly unravelling.
Space is filled with fog, the sea is filled with fire,
You have the last chronicles, written in the sand,
While I slowly dissolve and sand covers my bones.

1991