La luz bajo los arboles,
la luz del alto cielo.
La luz
verde
enramada
que fulgura
en la hoja
y cae como fresca
arena blanca.

Una cigarra eleva
su son de asserradero
sobre la transparencia.

Es una copa llena
de agua
el mundo.

 

 

ODE TO ENCHANTED LIGHT 

Light beneath the trees,
light high in the sky.
The green
arbor
light
that glows
in the leaf
and falls like fresh
white sand.

A cicada raises
its sawmill sound
over the transparency.

The world’s
a glass filled
with water.

 

Swist’s books include Huang Po and the Dimensions of Love (Southern Illinois University Press) and A Bird Who Seems to Know Me, which won the Ex Ophidia Poetry Prize. He’s published in Commonweal, Comstock Review, and New World Writing. His translation of Giuseppe Ungaretti’s L’Allegria was published by Shanti Arts.