Hear me on this. Poets laureate
\ndelight in growths of erudite
\nname \u2014 ligustrum, acanthus, box.
\nMy own path leads to overgrown
\nditches where boys fish stray eels
\nout\u00a0of half dried-up puddles,
\ndown lanes skirting their banks,
\nbearing past tufted cat-tails
\ninto orchards of lemon trees.<\/p>\n
Better that the chatter of birds
\nbe swallowed by the empty blue sky.
\nThen you hear the gracious\u00a0rustle
\nof branches in air barely astir,\u00a0the drift
\nof smells indistinct from\u00a0the earth
\nwhich fall like soft restless rain within.
\nThe distracting strife\u00a0of the\u00a0passions
\nis miraculously quelled. Even we
\npoor receive\u00a0our share\u00a0of\u00a0common
\nwealth:\u00a0the scent of lemon trees.<\/p>\n
See, in these tacit moments
\nwhen things seem ready
\nto own up their deepest secrets,
\nhow sometimes we expect to seize
\nupon an inner flaw of nature,\u00a0the hinge
\nof everything, a link\u00a0that gives way,
\na thread to unravel conducting
\nus back to the crux of a truth.
\nThe eye casts about, the mind\u00a0inquires,
\nreconciles, dissociates in\u00a0the fragrance
\nspreading as\u00a0the day drags on.
\nIn these silences we sense in each passing
\nhuman shade a provocative divinity.<\/p>\n
But illusions falter. Time returns us
\nto noisy streets where the\u00a0same blue sky
\nis reduced to fleeting patches above fa\u00e7ades.
\nRain again pummels the earth.
\nWinter\u2019s\u00a0tedium hangs over the houses.
\nLight turns grudging. Spirits are embittered
\nuntil, one day through a courtyard gate left
\ninadvertently ajar, the lemons\u2019\u00a0yellows\u00a0glisten.
\nThe heart\u2019s frozen floe\u00a0cracks,\u00a0pouring
\nforth\u00a0the\u00a0radiant peal\u00a0of the sun.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
How do poems get us, like this one did me, to the point I put it over into English?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Here, as best as I recollect, it was the lines translated as: …\u00a0<\/em>the overgrown \/ ditches where boys fish stray eels \/ out\u00a0of half dried-up puddles …..<\/span><\/p>\n