The Billowing Reeds

THE BILLOWING REEDS

The folding ivory, orphic ocean

Sobs as it rises

With shy, azure-blue, somnolent disguises

Evoking, with its waves, an amorous emotion.

Indistinct, a billow plays

Upon the swept-back reeds

Which makes ones dizzy

In the late afternoon, summery haze.

Upon the sky the sunset bleeds,

With a solemn, quivering majesty.

And you, beside me, naked in a bed of tall, wavering grasses

Look upon the piers of the jetty

As the thyme-scented breeze

Sighs as it passes.

Then the evening with its mysteries

Covers like a velvet veil

The hovering, foggy stars, the moonlight, pale,

And the distant, glowing bars of campfires.

Then, rising with the warm, red wind,

Beneath the airy, green cloak of a tamarind,

Your feminine desires,

Your feminine needs,

Become one with the swallowing, hungry sea

As you recline in the reeds,

Gazing at me.