O My Sweet Animals

Now autumn spoils the green of hills,

o my sweet animals. Again well hear,

before the night, the last lament

of birds, the call of the grey plain

that goes to meet that high sound

of the sea. And the smell of wood

in the rain, the smell of dens,

how it lives here among the houses,

among the men, o my sweet animals.

This face that turns its lingering eyes,

this hand that indicates the sky where

thunder roars, are yours, o my wolves,

my foxes burnt by blood.

Each hand, each face is yours.

You, love, tell me all was vain,

life, the days corroded by a water

assiduous, while from the gardens rises

a children's song. Are they distant,

then, from us? But they yield in the air

hardly like shadows. This your voice.

But I perhaps do know all has not been.