To Albert Camus, author of "The Stranger"

In the wasteland, over the sands / I walk alone

On the plain or in the mountains / I walk alone

Sometimes I walk slowly / like a meek dreamer

Or run a vagrant run / like a fugitive crying for help

Whenever I seek a moment's rest / a craving for flight assails me

Amid the teeming crowds / I walk alone

I shy away from every neighbor / without meaning to

My soul grew weary of people / before the age of weaning

I never built my palaces / but on the brink of collapse

As if my being thrust among men / were a slip in the book of fate

I shall cross this life alone / with none to help

I shall live without passion / and without longing

Nothing is sweet to me / but the smile of mockery

I push life along, striving / so as to drive away tedium

And when night crouches about me / I lie wakeful in the folds of the void