High water

Laughing in the morning, running through the rustling grass,

believing everything, shaking to heaven, like a sheaf,

the rosy flowering of the joy of being twenty.

Being loved of life and flowering in the spring,

trying out love as soon as winter is done,

Then, cradled in a boat, triumphantly

splashing the river with child-like cries.

Watching the wake spread out,

making the foam sing with the abrupt shock of the oars,

and, handsomer than a Greek god, plunging nervous flanks

into the green water that flees, licking at tresses.

Feeling, like the touch of unknown lovers,

the water's cool kiss on naked flesh.

Descending...

And that night, the fishermen will find,

water lilies at its feet and seaweed on its brow,

calm, serene, lying whitely on the brown mud,

a cold, sleeping corpse gazing up at the moon.