It begins quietly; it goes unnoticed

It begins quietly; it goes unnoticed
for a long time. Oh, these little deaths
that come to us in dreams, what cabinet
is there to hold them? Even the silkworms,
who are sensitive, I’m told, to human emotions,
go on spitting their strong fibers in mulberry trees.
And if the birds seem preoccupied and restless,
isn’t it always so? The insects all going without
knowing where they’re going to?

Now, the sirens are only heard going elsewhere
with their unmistakable slackening of pitch and panic.
No one notices because they have forgotten the word
here. There is only there. No one comes to visit,
as everyone is going, or else waiting to go.