The crumbled voice of my mother crying

“Come back! The death that carried off your brother doesn't want you!”

Was she talking to me or to the boy buried on the hill whose odour tempted jackals and wolves?

“Come back, and we'll give you quails to eat stuffed with Smyrna grapes

bread as white as the first snowfall

wine made from rubies’ blood

a bed of virgin wool tied at the ends

Come back and we'll carry on our shoulders the noise of your burial.”

Twenty pickaxes go to work around your head

Twenty women throw their veils into the hole

Twenty necessary words to loose you from your outdated shell

and offer you a garment that suits you

a carrier pigeon's

or the beast's that even vultures fear

“Where are you going like that?” the mother cried as I went with the stream as far as the river

and with the river to the sea

“Come back! The river is big enough to know its own way

Bring your footsteps back in your shoes

Bring the house back to the house” […]