Whose feet in careful sandals moved
past my oil lamp in the Palace?
My window eyes can see no shape
against the lights of the Western Wing:
a lover perhaps from the dark night
of the hidden waterways, where fires
of the People of the Kingdom
burn red with sticks - some Regni woman
pregnant under her brown cloak
claiming Maximus of the Guard?
The sea marsh smells of foreign dampness:
outside, their gods parade the mist:
we use their greensand and their clay,
their wood and iron, as peaceful builders:
but beyond the garden room I know
a century of tribal hands implores
a thunder-stone to break these walls.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem