Love Song

How can I keep my soul in me, so thatit doesn't touch your soul?

How can I raiseit high enough, past you, to other things?

I would like to shelter it, among remotelost objects, in some dark and silent placethat doesn't resonate when your depths resound.

Yet everything that touches us, me and you,takes us together like a violin's bow,which draws one voice out of two separate strings.

Upon what instrument are we two spanned?

And what musician holds us in his hand?

Oh sweetest song.

Translated by Stephen Mitchell