Slow, bitter animal
that I am, that I have been,
bitter since the tangle of dust and water and wind
that, in the first generation of man, asked something of God.

Bitter like those bitter minerals
that in the rights of exact solitude
—accursed and ruined solitude
without oneself—
climb the throat
and, crusts of silence,
suffocate, kill, revive.

Bitter like that bitter voice
before birth, before matter, that said
our word, that walked our path,
that died our death,
and that we discover in each moment.

Bitter from inside,
from what I am not,
—my skin as my tongue
from the first life
herald and prophecy.

Slow for centuries,
remote —there is nothing behind—,
far away, far off, unknown.

Slow, bitter animal
that I am, that I have been.