Don’t lower the wave of my heart,
it swells to your eyes, mother;
don’t alter love, but bring the wave to me
in your translucent hands.
He asked for this.
I am John the fisherman. There isn’t much
in me to love.
I feel I am still on that lake shore,
gravel crunching under my feet–
and, suddenly–Him.
You will embrace his mystery in me no more,
yet quietly I spread round your thoughts like myrtle.
And calling you Mother–His wish–
I beseech you: may this word
never grow less for you.
True, it’s not easy to measure the meaning
of the words he breathed into us both
so that all earlier love in those words
should be concealed.
