Sadness of the Moon — Image by kenne
SADNESS OF THE MOON
Tonight the moon is full of laziness —
Like a beauty reclining on many cushions
Before going to sleep, with light and distracted touch,
Caressing the contours of her breasts.
Upon the satin backs of soft avalanches
She abandons herself to the touch of her own hands,
And faintly looks down upon pale white visions
That climb into space like tropical vines.
From time to time, in her lonely delirium,
She lets a quick tear shoot across the sky,
And a pious poet, awake all through the night,
Takes this pale tear like a fragment of opal
Into the palm of his hand, and places it within his heart,
Far from the eyes of the sun.
— Charles Baudelaire
Translated by Wes Wallace
DOUBLETAKE SPRING 1997
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