AN EVENING (GOOSE) PASTORAL

quietly

the gloom

scuttles

deeper and deeper

evening digs a well

here geese

return from the meadow:

their procession walking through the evening

like a white

tunnel

it’s as though the geese

are small bundles of the white chalk of days—

God’s big bottles walking to the white

they walk from the meadow

they strain to hear inside themselves

the swelling

that becomes round and grows

that clangs from side to side

that sways the geese

look closely:

white ripens in the white—

even whiter than white

and yolks become furious—

eternal seedlings of the sun

Translated by Michael M. Naydan