Clear night - Luis G. Urbina

Whiteness of dream, whiteness of polar days,
Glistening white that blanches out the tide;
Whiteness which vanquishes shadow in the wide
Strange deep blue clouds that horizons erase.
The undulation is gentle, striped with rays
Of light—a spider-web immense and rare,
Whose frail netted fabric is broken where,
In the cold water, an oar dips and plays.

Then—marvellous!—from the moving oar-blades shake
Drops of snow and silver across the lake,
Marking the boat’s capricious bend and twist,
Till each with swaying wake dissolves from view
In distant fog—a web of white and blue
Which is dust of diamond in a sapphire mist.

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Luis G. Urbina (1868 - 1934) Mexico
Translated by Muna Lee

Source: Poetry Foundation