المشّاء الأخير...

I did not carry the sea in my hand,

nor did I hide a sail in my pocket.

I was walking,

and the seagulls were regaining their cries,

and the wind was shaking off

the salt of the years from my brow.

O vast blue

from my wound to the farthest absence,

what have you left for me?

A blind wave?

Or a shadow of clouds?

Or the footsteps of a man searching in the sands

for the way to the mirage?

How many stolen kisses

did the wind hide in the pocket of the evening?

How many hands touched hands

then trembled

like the wing of a seagull drenched by the last rain?

How many lovers parted

and left on the sand

the tremor of their embrace!

The waves of the sea erased

what remained of their footsteps,

then retreated

and in its shells

was the salt of lips.

I was walking,

not returning to a home,

not toward a horizon I desired.

There was a path in my chest

that every time I delved into it

brought me back to the distant.

I said: O sea, wait!

I am tired of the passing faces,

and of mirrors that reflect only the stranger

to the stranger.

Then the wave replied

as it bent over the rocks:

Walk...

and the day extinguished.

The last sun

was washing the wounded horizon,

and I saw my face in the waters,

but I did not find my face;

I saw a childhood that drowned,

and an old man leaning

on a cane of wind.

O sea,

who threw the keys of return

into your depths?

Who left the heart hanging

on the balconies of your fire?

I was walking,

and the horizon was walking,

behind me a wave,

in front of me a wave,

and between us a lifetime escaping from hands.

Every time the waters erased my footsteps

I returned to the sands,

writing in the dirt

what my feet had forgotten

of the names of the departed.

Until when the day disappeared,

and the last boat disappeared

into the blue of the drowning horizon,

I asked a passing wave:

Who remains

when the walkers have gone?

It stretched a hand of foam,

erased the question,

and ran back into eternity.

And I went on...

The night was opening in the horizon

a thousand doors,

and the wind was gathering behind me

what had scattered from absence.

So if the last dawn comes

and finds nothing on the sands

but a sail of fog,

ask the seagulls about me,

about the echo of a foot

that shattered in the waves.

Perhaps I became the horizon,

or I became a wave

that is seen only if

the mirage recedes.

Perhaps...

And I left on the sand

a step

where the going was not completed.