In Eridanus I drift,
The early morning amber,
The golden streak of sunlight on a flat cold sea,
A path that, though straight
From the point of view of the traveler,
In fact curves and twists across a myriad of courses
As only a river in the sea might:
Transient, intangible, the idea of a river.

Some search the Po Valley, some scan the starblack skies,
But only in the morning,
And only when I’m there
Are you also, stretched on the water,
Half an atom of warmth floating on the immense cold North.
I bathe only in your reflection,
Send hyacinth tears to mingle
As ideas with emotions:
A forgotten past and current feeling
Welling, pooling, deepening

Then widening – Helios begins his climb
Flooding like your mortal twin,
Overlapping sea and shore and land
Until spread so thin
That I no longer notice where you run,
The thought is gone and all that is left –
Two catkins wiped on the back of my hand.