I think back to your smile, which is for me a limpid pool
I’ve chanced to notice in the shingle of a riverbed,
reflecting ivy leaf and clustered flower, while overhead
the whiteness of the sky is peaceful and embraces all.

My friend, your face is with me still, although you’re far away.
Has it the look of one whose voice and guileless soul are free,
or do you wander in an evil world, in company
with those who wear their suffering like a charm? I couldn’t say.

But I can tell you this: each time your form comes to my mind,
a wave of calm drowns all my troubled fancies and false fears.
Within the dullness of my brain your probing look appears,
the way a palm-tree sapling’s topmost frond cuts through the wind…