ENCOUNTER
From the overhanging bough
I called the raging fish
by name.
Around the white moon I drew
a figure, with wings.
The hunter’s dream, I dream,
he sleeps with a deer.
Clouds move over the river,
this is my voice,
snow-light over the forests,
this is my hair.
Through the pitch-black sky
I came down this path,
a mouth full of grass, my shadow
leaned on the wooded fence, it said,
Take me back.
- Johannes Bobroski, translated by Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright