translated by Edward Snow

Already the city no longer drifts

like a bait, catching the days as they surface.

The glassy palaces ring more brittly

against your gaze. And from the gardens

the summer hangs like a heap of marionettes,

headfirst, exhausted, done in.

But from the ground, out of old forest skeletons,

volition rises: as if overnight

the commander of the sea had to double

the galleys in the sleepless arsenal,

in order to tar the next morning breeze

with a fleet, which pushes out rowing

and then suddenly, all its flags dawning,

seizes the high wind, radiant and dire.