Grafenauer Niko:
The House

The house where you think things over

is growing tense like a darkening day.

Memories close in

as if you were dying  with gloomy dignity.

Silence shines upon the immobility

you take from the dead.

Loneliness gnaws you like verdigris.

In the narrow crack of permitted consciousness

projecting itself like a beam into dusk,

moths quiver.

Love throws your enlarged shadow against the wall.

With a clammy key I step towards the threshold.

I call from the verge of black forebodings

into emptiness.

Silence is your language.

   I grow quiet,

but within me, as in late autumn,

sounds flutter, almost tears.

The house where you think things over

is like the beginning of all that goes away.

Translated by Jože Lazar