A failure of the language
by Ray Templeton
[ poetry - april 08 ]
The horses are cloud shadows on the plain,
or the shadows are horses -
one way or the other, they skim the surface,
scudding through lifted air,
flicking over fishermen rooted in the backdrop,
bent with the load of this morning's catch,
splintered variations in violet and green.
There are cracks that look like rain, but mostly
the colour is the movement: low tide, high tide,
the waterspout, flags in the street.
So why do the translators let us down?
Empty tins with one stone rattling,
where once was sense you could move around in:
nothing static or neutral as a landscape, but
an inhabited domain, a place where feet touch earth.
