A windy night and on this lonely road the prince of Parma’s army
has left carcasses of horses
on a bald hill the bones of a recently conquered castle are glowing
there’s only stone sand waste and a wind without purpose or color
What enlivens the landscape is a moon sharply imprinted on the sky
and a few soiled shadows below
as well as a white gallows for hanging from it are the thin pods
of bodies in which a wind blows life this wind without trees and clouds
“Landscape”
Elegy for the Departure, 1990
Zbigniew Herbert
trans. Alissa Valles
Who Killed Lemmy Caution? 