Masculinity and femininity, elapsed, met in him And every shame, every grief, every love. If ever we accede to enlightenment, He thought, it is in one compassionate moment When what separated them from me vanishes And a shower of drops from a bunch of lilacs Pours on my face, and hers, and his, at the same time.

It would be more decorous not to live. To live is not decorous, Says he who after many years Returned to the city of his youth. There was no one left Of those …

When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.

During the thirty years I have spent abroad I have felt I was more privileged than my Western colleagues, whether writers or teachers of literature, for events…