SUMMER
The falcon's cross-shaped shadow's scarcely known
to the young shrubs it grazes.
And what does the cloud see? Multiple faces
that form in the brimming wellspring.
Maybe you come back to me, dead girl,
Arethusa, at my feet,
in the silver wriggle of the trout
swimming against the current.
Here's the sunburned shoulder, here's the gold
nugget, upturned in the sun,
the crazy cabbage moth, the thin
spider's thread across the boiling foam--
some things manage to make it through
the needle's eye, but most do not . . .
Too many lives go into the making of just one.
--Eugenio Montale
translated by David Young
Translation copyright c 2004 by David Young. May
not be reproduced without permission.
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