THE SCROOGE

they expect me to collect
the afternoon’s broken crystal
and rejoin the pieces torn apart
calling for a false
fresh start

they advise me to look out for
the gold of a dawn we wore off
and abandoned beyond recall,
the copper steam of your skin
you returned in an ash urn

they tell to retrieve
a word overheard in reverie,
the tongue of thunder, the escape of the birds,
and nothing ever goes astray
remaining out of my domain

you ask me to spare a dream I cannot say,
and whose forgetfulness I never happen remember,
a shout of pain I scraped in mid-air
but which engraved in the naught
at least a wisp of my voice

a stalled watch, a burned match,
a love put out of order,
everything that fooled the fences of time
and looks back over us
from the other side of life and death

you beg me to save in the fortune of forged coins
we treasure in our recollection
all the things I didn’t have but long hoped for,
and all the things I never wished
but right now I realise I missed

you claim that I should clam to as much as I can,
but I cannot help possessing already the outright plenty
of all the things I have never gained and will never again,
and so, to the richness of this day, I can only add
whatever still rests to be left