After A Lost Original

When the translation and original meet
The doubtful original and the strong translation
The original feels lost like a triple pun
And the translation cries, Without me you are lost
Then be my dream, thin as the definition
Of a trance in a garden
The ambiguous friend responds, Perhaps I do astonish you
Like a boy confused with a butterfly’s dream
But you are my dream now, after all
If I don’t think of you, you disappear
After which they both comically disappear
Like a slice through two trees for a thousand years
Return knowing coldly a need for guerdons, guardians
Letters written on clouds, snakes on curtains and naked devices
Frighten them no longer since they live only together
Father and son refracted through blue green black moss
They travel together to the margins of a cloud.

Copyright ©: David Shapiro

(in: After a Lost Original, 1994)