Every gesture, however simple, violates an inner secret. Every gesture is a revolutionary act; an exile, perhaps, from the true of ..... our intentions.

Action is a disease of thought, a cancer of the imagination. Action is self-exile. Every action is incomplete and flawed. The poem I dream has no flaws until I try to realize it. We find this recorded in the myth of Jesus. God, becoming man, cannot help but end in martyrdom. The supreme dreamer has the supreme martyr for a son.

The leaves’ tattered shadows, the birds’ tremulous song, the river’s long arms shimmering coolly in the sun, the plants, the poppies, and the simplicity of sensations – even while feeling all this, I’m nostalgic for it, as if in feeling it I didn’t feel it.

Time, like a wagon at the close of day, creakingly returns through the shadows of my thoughts. If I lift up my eyes from my thinking, they smart at the sight of the world.

To realize a dream, one must forget it, tearing away his attention from it. To realize is thus to not realize. Life is full of paradoxes, as roses are of thorns.

I’d like to write the encomium of a new incoherence that could serve as the negative charter for the new anarchy of souls. I’ve always felt that a digest of my dreams might be useful to humanity, which is why I’ve never tried to compile one. The idea that something I did might be helpful galled me and made me feel sapped.

I have country homes on the outskirts of life. I escape from the city of my actions to the trees and flowers of my reverie. Not a single echo from the life of my acts reaches my green retreat. I’m lulled by my memory as by an endless procession. From the goblets of my meditation I drink only the smile of the golden wine; I drink it only with my eyes, closing them, and Life passes by like a sail in the distance.

Sunny days smack of what I don’t have. The blue sky and white clouds, the trees, the flute that’s missing – eclogues left unfinished by the branches’ rustling… All this is the silent harp, grazed by the lightness of my fingers.

The vegetable academy of silences… your name that sounded like poppies… the ponds… my going home… the crazy priest who went out of his mind during Mass… These memories are from my dreams… I keep my eyes open but see nothing… The things I do see aren’t here… Waters*…

The lush green of the trees, through a jumble of entanglements, is part of my blood. Life throbs in my distant heart… I wasn’t meant for reality, but life came and found me.

The agony of fate! I could die tomorrow! Even today something terrible could befall my soul! When I think of these things, I’m sometimes appalled at the supreme tyranny that obliges us to take steps without knowing where our uncertain paths will lead.