Mr Ferry has figured here
repeatedly, as a transla-
tor so gifted in the Clas-
sics as to allow reliance
on him as if he were cox-
swain to our crew (is this
not love?); and as a poet
in his own right, captur-
ing synapses of the mind
as we tend ourselves, ten-
tatively, to know it. But
is the mind alone in that
lithe and questing boat?
Probably the German langu-
age has a noun for a ves-
sel straining with deter-
mination and delight. I
wish I knew it; or maybe,
I do.
We climb into this season
with our sinews polished
by the last, to figure why
there's still a question,
only to exult in complica-
tion.
Now the tree
that had been stone
is stone again.
Another age
With notice none
Of what had gone
And come again,
And every tide
Registers on
The roaring page
The change of bone
To ice, and stone
To flower, and sea.
David Ferry
Of No Country I Know
New and Selected Poems
and Translations
By the Sea Shore
University of Chicago Press, 1999©
i Kris Kislop
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