To the Singing Orpheus

Orpheus, listen! Your voice is like a leaf
That has fallen onto the water and thins as it vanishes.
But in what has faded – the music continues,
And in the muteness, the first bridge grows.

Where you have been, there is no longer a gate –
For you are it, the entrance within the song.
Where the dead walk – there is your eternal circumference,
And all footprints rise, guided by sounds.

Do not call back. Love is not a pleading,
But a breath that quietly comes to life
In everything where desire alone disappears.

Sing – for the world is only a head
That bows, having heard: in suffering
Grows both the stone, and the grass, and the glory.