Elizabeth Bishop (Элизабет Бишоп)
Sandpiper
The roaring alongside he takes for granted, and that every so often the world is bound to shake. He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward, in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake. The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet of interrupting water comes and goes and glazes over his dark and brittle feet. He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes. --Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs, he stares at the dragging grains. The world is a mist. And then the world is minute and vast and clear. The tide is higher or lower. He couldn’t tell you which. His beak is focussed; he is preoccupied, looking for something, something, something. Poor bird, he is obsessed! The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.
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