A Musical Box

I’ll strive to open the violet box,

your musical box, the one you’d sent me

as a gift in an enigmatic way. Who could’ve managed

to enter my room unseen while I was sleeping,

since only dreams were granted permission

to draw near to my slumber ? You used to say

you wouldn’t for the world part with this

violet object you pretended to treasure

as the apple of your eye. How on earth did it enter my room ?

All of a sudden a bitter fear gripped and disquieted my soul

and my hands began to tremble

my cheeks turning violet-blue at the thought

that inside the musical box I might come across

the flower I offered you

when you first smiled at me,

while the weeping willow on the shore bowed

to absorb your image from the lake’s mirror

then I suddenly felt the clutches of jealousy

thrust deeply into my heart so that, clenched fists,

I dashed upon the willow, fiercely striking its trunk

and I kept striking till someone, hidden within the trunk’s heart,

flung the bark of the tree open as if pushing

a window open and scrutinised me with harsh irony.

Frightened into another shudder, I ran away,

deserting you by the weeping willow which had instilled in me

the serpent of dread, the serpent of jealousy − it tormented my heart

simply because I beheld the weeping willow bow to absorb you

from the lake’s mirror and, maddened with having left you alone

when I cowardly threw you off into the willow’s arms

while it was bowing to absorb you from the lake’s mirror,

yet I instantly stopped and desperately looked back,

but you were no longer there and my heart started

to throb ardently. I felt it fretting

to flee from me. I’d turned into a stranger for her,

anguished by the willow’s having absorbed you into its heart,

whence the frightening eyes had scrutinised me.

Defying the disquietude which gripped me, the turmoil

bubbling in my blood, I opened the musical box,

although inside it I didn’t come across the flower of your first smile,

inside it I came across a blossoming willow twiglet.

This and nothing else inside: A weeping willow twiglet.

Whereupon, dismayed that the weeping willow had sent me this sign,

of its triumph, of your having been willfully absorbed into its heart,

I started to run out of myself, rushing beyond my thoughts

and I’ve been seeking you everywhere, ceaselessly seeking,

and, enthralled by my own thoughts,

I’m sitting on the lake’s shore

awaiting to sap your image from the lake’s mirror.

English version by Gabriela PACHIA