Robert Saxton
The Turbot
after Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus, II, xx
From star to star, what emptiness extends!
Here on Earth, between our own lives, greater by far
the distances. Take that child, playing with friends.
How remote from each other even the closest are.
Our fate lies in ourselves, which makes it strange.
Into a silent future we propel our lives.
When a girl fails to meet you at the moated grange,
and hides her love, how alien her motives.
Everywhere distance, the circle incomplete.
The turbot, asymmetrically dead, attends our grace.
How weird its expression on the serving-dish!
Lifted to heaven, white eyes, in mute defeat,
withhold the sea’s wisdom - that in a wilder place
we too might mouth inaudibly, like fish.
Page(s) 13
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