I am wandering about the street alone.
Red as the roofs, the sun spreads slowly
behind them its last glow in the West.
And fixing it with my eyes I remember.
There will be the same glow in Naples.
The windows at the top of buildings
will all be flickering as if on fire.
The whole bay of Naples will be glittering.
Like grass swaying in the evening breeze
green waves will be rolling in the harbour
and through the noise and smoke, like a herd
of cows in the evening, the boats
wallowing in the water, lowing.
People in gay clothes will be standing
on the quayside, blessing the end of day
well spent and free from care.
But I am no longer there.
There will be a glow over Paris, too.
They will be closing the Luxembourg Gardens.
A trumpet call, passionate, drawing
down the darness as if summoned by those notes,
the night falling lightly on the white trottoirs.
A crowd of children following the garden,
listening in ecstasy, happy, innocent,
to the rapturous brass call,
each one trying to get closest
to the wonderful trumpeter.
Through the wide open gates
people stream out, noisy, gay.
But I am no longer one of them.
Why can`t we be, at the same time,
both here and there - everywhere
life beats continuously and hard?
We are always dying, slowly disappearing
first from always dying, slowly disappearing
first from this place, then from another,
until we vanish altogether in the end.

Translated from Bulgarian by Roy Macgregor-Hastie.

Library | Atanas Dalchev