For Helena

If you remember me when you’re old, that’ll be because I gave you this poem. Otherwise, you might have no poetry, no loveliness, and no memory of me. My love, my life, your youth, your beauty will be reduced to a line of verse. We will become as distant as planets, as distant as a book you never open. The snow of old age accumulates slowly. It covers the blossoms, the fruit, the birds. But my love, deeply buried, will still be there.