The Gentle Hill

Birds far-off and open in the evening

tremble on the river. And the rain insists

and the hissing of the poppies illumined

by the wind. Like everything remote

do you return to mind. The light green

of your dress is here among the plants

burnt by lightning-flashes where the gentle

hill of Ardenne rises and one hears

the kite-hawk on the fans of broom-corn.

Perhaps in my return deluded, I

confided in that flight of locked-in spirals,

the harshness, the defeated christian pity,

and this naked pain of sadnesses.

You have a flower of coral in your hair.

But your face is an unchanging shadow;

(thus death does). From the darkened houses

of your borough, I hear the Adda and the rain,

or perhaps a quivering of human steps

upon the banks among the tender canes,