Raw hatred took its time making an outpost of its rage and prepared for me a savage crown with rusty, bloodstained spikes. It wasn't pride that made me keep my heart at a distance from such terror, nor did I waste on revenge or the pursuit of power the forces that came from my selfish griefs or my accumulated joys. It was something else-my helplessness.

What does autumn go on paying for with so much yellow money?

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance climbed up through my conscious mind as if suddenly the roots I had left behind cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood - and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.

When I sleep every night, what am I called or not called? And when I wake, who am I if I was not I while I slept?

Eating alone is a disappointment. But not eating matter more, is hollow and green, has thorns like a chain of fish hooks, trailing from the heart, clawing at your insides. Hunger feels like pincers, like the bite of crabs; it burns, burns, and has no fur. Let us sit down soon to eat with all those who haven't eaten; let us spread great tablecloths, put salt in lakes of the world, set up planetary bakeries, tables with strawberries in snow, and a plate like the moon itself from which we can all eat. For now I ask no more than the justice of eating.

The bare earth, plantless, waterless, is an immense puzzle. In the forests or beside rivers everything speaks to humans. The desert does not speak. I could not comprehend its tongue; its silence...

Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away?