Summer End On The Leie Poem by Miriam Van hee

this is what a painter would see:
the bleached grassy bank, chestnuts
and lime trees, the warm but departing
light of evening and against a hedge
on the other bank a walker, and his
thoughts, how do you paint those
and above the water the gulls
and between the pale and darker green
the deck of a yacht, the shifting
of things, the directions

from where we're seated you can't see
the water itself and I'm still wondering how you
paint distances, perhaps ever lighter
until you're left with white, and how capture the past
when you still walked there yourself

how do you paint that you'll never
walk there again, struggling
while your father holds you by the hand

Translation: Judith Wilkinson