LAMENTO 1. Poem by Peter Verhelst

1.
Now the evening, that particular evening when the light so rare,
the evening would be like that from now on and this the lake where we once,
the wooden pontoon where you now look across the water
for a bird alighting, always the last crane to
a stone in the water, the last sunlight, a silver knife rubbed thin on the mountain,
the way you over your shoulder across the water on the wooden pontoon, the lake
where the crane comes sailing up, the water splashing,
the pontoon where you in the evening light over your shoulder
look away from me where I pointed to the crane, then we still thought,
then we heard the water splash and at the same time looked, the flick of your hair,
your head away from me, as if you dropped a glass from one hand,
the other hand on my shoulder, a little longer

by the lake, when the water like old silver, when your dress on the wooden pontoon,
after which we stood before each other and you kept on looking over your shoulder,
hard to distinguish from the sky, from the blackness from the water soon
we stood before each other, almost touching, a little longer and we would,
a little longer your hand on my shoulder, the sun run out into the mountains, how we
on the edge of the pontoon, the dark, completely of the blackness of the water
till also the water and the mountains, till you looked yourself away from me, away
from the world, till also the thinking by the lake and the water and the mountains, till we
no longer, till also the thinking of us no longer, slowly over the pontoon
the water flows, the dress, the pontoon a pontoon of salt in the water.