A nameless journey by Lea Goldberg

I
Where am I? How can I explain where I am?
My eyes are not visible in any window,
My face is not reflected in any mirror,
All the city's streetcars ride on without me.

And the rain falls and does not wet my hands.
And I am here, wholly here---
in a foreign city
in the heart of a great foreign homeland.

2
My room is so small
that the days in it are wary and grow shorter,
and I too live in it cautiously
in the smell of smoke and apples.

At night the neighbors light a lamp:
across a great courtyard, through the high birch leaves,
a window facing me glows quietly.
Sometimes at night it's hard to remember
that once
somewhere---
there was a window which was mine.

3
It's been weeks since anyone has addressed me
by name, and it's so simple:
the parrots in my kitchen
haven't yet learned it,
people in all corners of the city
don't know it.
It exists only on paper, in writing,
it has no sound, no note or voice.

For days I walk nameless
in the street whose name I know.
For hours I sit nameless
facing a tree whose name I know.
Sometimes, nameless, I think
of he whose name I do not know.

4
I walked with the boats and I stood with the bridges
and I was cast on the street
with the falling elm leaves,
I had an autumn
and I had a cloud of light beside a black chimney.
And I had a strange name
which no one can guess.