Imitation of Water

On the sheet, on your side,

already so marine a scene,

you were looking like a wave

lying down on the beach.

A wave that was stopping

or better: that was refraining;

that would contain a moment

its murmur of liquid leaves.

A wave that was stopping

at that precise hour

when the eyelid of the wave

drops over its own pupil.

A wave that was stopping

in breaking, interrupted,

would stop itself, immobile,

at the height of its crest

and would make itself a mountain

(being horizontal and fixed)

but in becoming a mountain

would yet continue to be water.

A wave that would keep,

in a seashore bed, finite,

the nature without end

that it shares with the sea,

and in its immobility,

guessed to be precarious,

o dom de se derramar

que as águas faz femininas

mais o clima de águas fundas,

a intimidade sombria

e certo abraçar completo

que dos líquidos copias.

the gift of overflowing

that makes the waters feminine,

and the climate of deep waters,

the shadowy intimacy,

and a certain full embrace

you copy from the liquids.

Translated by Ashley Brown