Keep mainly to themselves, leading
The quiet life down there,
Free from distraction.
Full-grown, they are slightly larger
Than your little finger and hang
Silent in the pools, their icy fins
Barely feathering the clear water polished
Through so many miles of pure stone
It is almost not water.
And they have no stars, no vague seasons,
No light flooding the amazed chambers
Clustered with stalactites, rotting jewelry,
Roses, molars, staircases of wrinkled ivory
And sugar-pink, two-ton wedding cakes
Collapsing with a flurry of wings and centaurs
To disturb them so they are blind.
Their eyes rest like moist pearls
In their milky faces, and each creature
Will regard the other as a secret, gently,
As they reproduce with a pale shuddering
Their perfect lives.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem