"Childhood Memories"
Those years are foliage of trees,
their trunks hidden by bushes'
behind them a grey haze topped with silver
hides the swinging steps of my first love
the Danube.
On its face
grave steel palaces with smoking torches,
parading monasteries moved slowly to the Black Sea
till the bared branches scratched the north wind.
On its bed
a great Leviathan waited
for the ceremonies on the arrival of Messiah
and bobbing small fishes snapped sun splinters
for the pleasure of the monster.
Along its shores
red capped little hours danced
with rainbow colored kites,
messengers to heaven.
My memory is a sigh
of swallows swinging
through a slow dormant summer
to a timid line on the horizon.
William Saphier's poem "Childhood Memories" was published in the third Others anthology in 1920. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication follow the link(s) below: