i have dreamed of you so much - robert desnos

I Have Dreamed Of You So Much

by Robert Desnos (tr. Paul Auster)

   I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.

   Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth 

and make your dear voice come alive again?

   I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed

on my chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape

of your body.

   For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for

so many days and years, I would surely become a shadow.

   O scales of feeling.

   I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me

to wake up.  I sleep on my feet, prey to all the forms of life and love, and you,

the only one who counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and

lips than touch the lips and face of some passerby.

   I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept

so much with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to

become a phantom among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow

than the shadow that moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial

of your life.