The Wind Outside the Prison Hummed

The poem is not lost
In translation, since
The poem is never

Translated. The poem
Is the translation,
The language that’s not

Really the language
Of the world the poem
Is about, the world

Of the body, say,
Or of the heart, or
Even of people.

They’re so close, of course,
People’s languages
And their translations

Into poems, almost
Intelligible
Dialects without

Translation. And then,
The other extreme,
The beyond-human

World, not a language,
Hardest to translate,
Most often what’s lost.