Tempest

How the river carries me, how it tosses me along
from one lake to another, one thirst to another.
With silent throats the fish incant a vatic song—
they who circle endlessly like a sunflower of water.

Go from this tower, descend the stair,
stoke the embers beneath the wings of the waterbird—
the smallest blossom’s ripple rocks all the centuries there
and moves the looming shadows of faces long departed.

The depths of the earth roar, like dense cloud rent by lightning,
the world is uprooted, the old axles crack with doom,
all is shattered, collapsing, everything is dying
before the deer on the wave as before breasts in bloom.

Weep, water! Depths, wail! Wail, planet ablaze!
Weather that rages is weather in truth.
Beneath you the earth lies exhausted and dazed,
and a dark horseman comes to gather his fruit.