“The secret I am looking for is buried in a valley full of olive trees, beneath the grass and the cold violets, around an old house that smells of vines.
For more than twenty years I have wandered over this valley and others like it, questioning dumb goatherds, knocking at the door of empty ruins.
Sometimes, when the first star shines in a still, clear sky, beneath a rain of delicate light, I have thought that I knew. I did know, in fact. Perhaps I still know. But no one is interested in this secret, doubtless I myself do not desire it, and I cannot cut myself off from my own people.
I live with my family, who believe they reign over rich and hideous cities, built of stones and mist. Day and night it raises its voice, and everything yields beneath it while it bows down to nothing: it is deaf to all secrets.
Its power sustains me and yet bores me, and I come to be weary of its cries. But its unhappiness is my own, we are of the same blood. I too am sick, and am I not a noisy accomplice who has cried out among the stones?
Thus I try to forget, I march through our cities of iron and fire, I smile bravely at the night, I welcome the storms, I will be faithful. In fact, I have forgotten: henceforth, I shall be able to renounce our shrieking tombs, to go and lie down in the valley, under the unchanging light, and learn for one last time what I know.”
Poetic Outlaws 