Can this music, playing

Can this music, playing

in the village square,

reach the white moon and

the sadness of the cemetery?

The houses are closed up

and nothing goes by... everything in the sky

trembles; the distant and silent

stars... Oh! the dead

who, with their mouths, once red as blood,

laughed at hours like these

when the waltz opened

toward the morning stars!

The dead whom I knew,

whom I kissed, whose hands

I held, who dressed

in red silk and...

Silence

as before... the doors

are all shut; in the sky

the stars converse distantly.

And this is the town,

white from the moon and blue

from the dawn and from dreams,

at the sound of this ancient music

reaching up to the cemetery.