Tell me of Aeneas, David Ferry

The stream still flows through the meadow grass,
As clear as it was when I used to go in swimming,

Not good at it at all, while my father's voice
Gently called out through the light of the shadowy glade,
Trying to help me learn. The branches hung down low
Over those waters made secret by their shadows.
My arms flailed in a childlike helpless way.

And now the sharp blade of the axe of time
Has utterly cut away that tangle of shadows.
The naked waters are open to the sky now 
And the stream still flows through the meadow grass.

David Ferry
Of no country I know
  New and selected
  poems and translations
  "The Lesson"
    from the Latin of Samuel Johnson
University of Chicago Press, 1999©

Marijn van Asten
2017

Alexander Calder
Maelstrom with Blue
1967

Man Ray
1973

Josef Albers
1935