The island is memorable to us
as the change of a mirror
or an underground river.

The island loses in going.
it appears to be still.
Half of it, now, is in shadow,

and yet it increases in going,
memorable as the moon’s changes.
It makes unnoticed advances

With an appearance of yielding;
it slips through the fingers,
a stone with a milky luster…

No, you cannot hold it, it
twists like a woman! Its nights
are memorable to us: the black

rope-straining goat’s golden-
eyed gaze at our passings,
the leghorn rooster, white

as a bare body’s twisting, the cross
enclosed by the cipher, the night
enclosed by the rose…

Oh, heavy our flow
compared to the weight of an island!
For we are the anchored, the island

a constant white gliding!