the faun

upon a fallen bough he sat

musing it seemed with the eyes on the river.

from the other side of the bank

children played and adolescents flirtatiously drunk.

he didn't mind, he nodded not his head

to the scene of lust and its mistakes.

he let the slow procession of the grass

come down to bathe at the ripples' sound;

the multitude of leaves and blades

he only perceived by patches of green

from where emerged at times

the bow of the yellow chalices

for a kiss on the bumblebee.

There the river stubborn reprises

allowed him to embark his melancholy

now toward the valley, where the crests gathered

to a film of impenetrable silver cold, then up

closer to the hidden mouth, where the meadows

were refreshed with a mellower hue

from the mounts' widened hold.

between the lulls the river become the trees

that screened the song of the keeping birds

in a monotony of bark without any depths

that he thought to encompass by strain of his waiting

until the river and its nerves and the trees it declaimed

rooted in his pose by sense of continuous serenity

discovering through touch what now

only sight imposed in distant knowing.

thus he stayed till evening come

and the shadows grew spilling forms with sleep

where only the river advanced through different echoes;

there too the faun was a shadow among others.

then you called me to remind

that your friends waited us for dinner. and i

a slave to the fear that conceals intents

must abandon any further enquiry behind

that might in the night some peace find

with the faun.