dreams are also wounds

thus every dream secretly and small inscribes its letters
at dawn we search for scabs of ink in the glass
to store them away in safe archives

but the wounds never heal

the darkest blood continues to bloom
orchards of revolutions on the sheets
or the bubbling of love in gardens

of wounds that never heal

even the deaf are allowed to dream
as the mad are free to whisper their letters
and the blind to look at the wind

pain bruises us all to a more intimate shade--
how green were the birds in the gardens
of my youth, how ripe and painted the sun

and the snow never heals

the earth is a ruler rich in people
people are kings rich in trees
of fear or of hate, or trees of yearning

which can never heal the dreams

for this is our only unending paradise--
we are rich like a fisherman
sorting and counting his ultimate eggs

returning fish to the sea
in order to speak like eggs talk
to sing like waves bleeding for years

with blood that never heals

the soldiers have eyes like peas
the peasants have hands of earth
and they all dream messages and worlds

filled with flowers that can never heal

now even a parrot enters the poem, a yellow parrot
airing its complaints from verse
to line with a wail in the black sails of its tongue

so that its songs can never heal

so my nights will never learn to heal or read
for you have come to let the last drops of my blood
would you too be no more than a scar in my flesh?

without blood we cannot possibly bleed
and our dreams are the blood of the night
just as we are blood and dreamt in blood

and so i remain a bed-marshal
emptying my armies night after night
pressing the inkdrops from my heart

for you, dreamt up, who can never heal

our bodies are mere husks of flesh
destined to wither into walking sticks
when, finally, undreaming, we go to sleep

and only then will water turn to vinegar
and silence stretch its rainbows in the sky
and then our dreams will meet

and may these letters never heal
assuredly, these wounds will never heal


translated from the afrikaans by andre brink