Yves Bonnefoy
The Anchor’s Long Chain (Ales Stenar)
translated by Beverley Bie Brahic
I
They say
Boats appear in the sky
And from some of them
The anchor’s long chain may rattle down,
Down towards our furtive land.
The anchor bobs over our fields and trees
Seeking a place to moor,
But soon a wish from above yanks it free;
The ship of elsewhere has no use for here,
Its horizon lies in another dream.
It may however come to pass
That the anchor is heavy, unusually so,
And rakes the ground, rumpling the trees.
Someone saw it snag a church door,
Catch the arch where our hope fades,
And a sailor had to shinny down
The taut, jerking chain,
And free his heaven from our night.
