It didn't snow this year
I'm not sad
Just a little numb
And a trifle stunned
The hours pass too swiftly
Pounding past me
On elephant's feet
And it's a shame
That he's spending this evening alone
It's a shame that she
Still thinks we're in love
It's a shame that they
Are drinking with friends
Instead of going to bed
Like they should be

That which I breathe in and exhale
That which shows itself as fug on the window panes;
Is this proof of the warmth, or the cold?

It howls in the evenings,
angry and desperate as
it whistles through buildings,
the shush of trees, thejingle of roof tile shingles,
the eery groan between the cracks.
Is this a war cry or a lullaby?

The cold bite on skin,
the thrash on limbs,
the buffeting -- upward, downward, wherever,
intent on making man fall;
Is this the trial or the sentence?

Invariably,
You prefer to come
To me in the dark.
"You're more my temperature then,"
You once said.
I'm not much of a thermometer,
But I am the eurythmy
To each syllable you give
In such settled shadow.
A play of murmurs and fingertips,
You once named this.
Always I see a wreath in your hair,
In colors of Persia,
Textures of night,
And the soft blended lines
Of you I know
Infallibly.

Into the evening dusk
The steady beat of the trumpets ring about
Next time
As I gaze up upon the stars
I'll wish for you
While they hurry down from the sky

Though, I know
You'll never be mine.

Our love, a match
You, a Marlboro evening
We share every warm sunset.
I'm not sure when we'll finally burn out but at least I'll have the ashes to prove that we really, really, did try.
You, a lighter, ignite my flame
let the sparks never die.
After all this time still wishing and wishing upon shooting stars for you
my one true love.

Translated by Przemyslaw Musialowski 11/4/2019

It's evening, Lord! The forest birds
towards their nests lean their wings...
Minstrels of your fields
have stopped to sing their songs.

I've spent a whole long hard day at work
in tears, longing for home...
and you didn't have a single bright ray
from the lights of the morning and of the day, and of the sun.
My time slowly bends to an end,
the evening star, trembling in the sky,
already flashes among the shadows of the night.

Maria Konopnicka (1842-1910)

____
I am not happy with the last line. Original: "already flashes/twinkles/shines among the shadows.

Leave me like past eventide
and reoccur like morningtide
so that I can rest in the faith
of seeing you one more time.

i feel the lonely bitterness of streetlights
slink away into the city

when I think of you,
home .