Women in White

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

You don't have "bad" days and "good" days.
You don't sometimes feel brilliant and sometimes dumb.
There's no studying, no scholarly thinking
having to do with love,
but there is a great deal of puffing, and secret touching,
and nights you can't remember at all.

When I die, lay out the corpse.
You may want to kiss my lips,
just beginning to decay.
Don't be frightened
if I open my eyes.

They say that Paradise will be perfect
with lots of clear white wine
 and all the beautiful women.
We hold on to times like this then,
since this is how it's going to be.

We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.
That's fine with us. Every morning
we glow and in the evening we glow again.
They say there's no future for us.
They're right.
Which is fine with us.

At night we fall into each other with such grace.
When it's light, you throw me back
like you do your hair.
Your eyes now drink with God,
mine with looking at you,
one drunkard takes care of another.