Brittany Joy

A Mostly-Literal Translation: De Profundis

In the stubble, a black rain falls.

Wind whispers through a lone brown tree

and around the empty huts.

How sad this evening.

Outside the village,

the gentle orphan gathers scanty ears of corn.

Her gaze is round and golden in the twilight,

and her lap awaits the heavenly bridegroom.

God’s silence casts a dark shadow

on the distant villages.

I drink from the fountain in the grove.

On his return home,

a shepherd found the sweet lover

decayed in the bush.

A cold coin on my forehead,

spiders eat my heart

and swallow the light in my mouth.

At night I found myself in a heath,

in the hazel copse,

bristling with dirt and stardust,

and the glass angel sang again.