Alexander Dickow

Old Lithographed Landscape

A causeway wavers all the tilted days
Through hamlets ache and crouch the hills
A slow wharf dimly drinks the watery lake
Men lean their dugouts forward on a stilt
An unsound fog wafts of fish and founders
A long ago dog neglects to bay

Vieille gravure d’un paysage

La chaussée chancelle les jours penchés
A travers des hameaux pelotonnent les collines
Une lente embarcadère lamente le lac
Des échasses filent les barques en avant
Les poissons effluvent les brumes
Un chien jadis omet des hurlements

Woolgathering

Eavesdroplets listen rhythmically
From clouds my ears are reckoning
Like sand the whelks asleep in opal flocks
Will one by one converse across
Their ocean tongues, marooned
Merino secrets in the lofty surf
Whose ebbing forward toward sleep
Strikes the sky, the roof, the shore.

Sommeil

La pluie écoute à la pointe des pieds
Depuis des nuages dénombrés
Des oreilles tels du sable
Tous ces troupeaux somnolents
Des buccins causent en traversant
Leurs langues océanes, moutonnant
De secrets le haut ressac qui s’endormit
Vers le ciel, la toiture et la rive.

Author: Alexander Dickow

Alexander Dickow is a poet, translator, and scholar, and an associate professor of French at Virginia Tech. His books include Trial Balloons (Corrupt Press, 2012) and Appetites (MadHat Press, 2018).

Plume: Issue #95 July 2019