White nights

No one here,
and the body says: whatever is said
is not to be said. But no one
is a body as well, and what the body says
is heard by no one
but you.

Snowfall and night. The repetition 

of a murder 

among the trees. The pen 

moves across the earth: it no longer knows 

what will happen, and the hand that holds it 

has disappeared.

Nevertheless, it writes. 

It writes: in the beginning, 

among the trees, a body came walking 

from the night. It writes: 

the body's whiteness 

is the color of earth. It is earth,
and the earth writes: everything 

is the color of silence.

I am no longer here. I have never said 

what you say 

I have said. And yet, the body is a place 

where nothing dies. And each night, 

from the silence of the trees, you know 

that my voice 

comes walking toward you.

Paul Auster

1947 - 2024