[There was - then the moon was only a sheen, the town] Poem by Michael Donhauser

There was - then the moon was only a sheen, the town,
the gathered clouds, nearby the naked branches of a bough,
bowing low … what was once was festive now bankrupt,
though a glaze still lay on the asphalt like silent leaf-fall, such that
something like a cold farewell soon arose - though too soon,
like the star-dawn, a slow timbre … a bus turned and raised
the dust and droned faraway as if from a place out of time
when once everything spoke, everything inclined to one,
as lonely as it was. And also where what was called life, and
whatever it accomplished, had gone astray - but even if, far from
anything like comfort, had met, at least, a kind of match.

Translated by Don Paterson