BANKS Poem by Stefan Hertmans

He caught a hawk-moth
With his hand when really
He wanted to keep a child
From plunging headlong into water.

The child, unsteadily upright,
Saw a wound-shaped
Jewel. It fluttered and

Tumbled, ducked down the
Blond hairs of a smooth skin
And landed flat on a rippling plane.

There it drank briefly from its
doom, then drifted, like old

barter, into the river mouth,
the waterfall, washed along

with things.

A hand grown small reached
For a pointing finger.