Dead, every one, and gone beneath the snow.

I search the past for them, but miss their faces.

They are where all the happy dead must go.

Only, in this dark room, I cannot know

their quietness, their sleep; my head replaces

each one precisely in his life, and so

they walk again this path from lungs to teeth,

escaping painfully from sweet relief.

Each bears his rhythm like an inner star:

each is walked through by some one line of stress

not chosen or invented, though they are

not accidental either, since they test,

for each imprinted pattern, where the bar

is lightly crossed, or halted at. My chest

rises and falls beneath my shirt, as each

treads slowly through me his peculiar speech,

sending me softly dumbnesses, impressions

left in the surface of my slow tongue, which 

shifts shape a little each time. Dreams, depressions,

pass through my face from inside. In this rich,

yet monochrome, design, these curls, recessions,

vaults and returns speak, soundlessly, dip, pitch

their friendly spirit voices through my sight

and out into the European night.