The Word Brambles, You Say

V

I go out.
I dream that I am going out into the snowy night.
I dream that I am carrying
With me, far, outside, there is no turning back,
The mirror from the upstairs bedroom, the mirror from
Summers past, the boat at whose prow
We, simple, pushed forward...

VI

But here I am now
Standing outside the house; everything is motionless
Since it is only a dream. And so I go on, leaving,
It hardly matters where, against a wall, beneath the stars,
This mirror, our life. And may night’s dew
Condense and flow, over the images…

...

~ Text and title: “The Top of the World,” Yves Bonnefoy, included in John Naughton’s translation of Bonnefoy’s In the Shadow’s Light, University of Chicago Press, 1991.

~ Image: Antonio Victor, Untitled photogram, 1918