Lost Wine

--Paul Valéry (trans. Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody)

One day I tossed into the Ocean

(I don’t recall under what skies)

A kind of offering to the void,

A whole remnant of precious wine…

Who willed your loss, Oh alcohol?

Perhaps the heavens led my hand?

Perhaps my heart’s preoccupation,

Dreaming of blood, spilling wine?

There was a brief effusion of rosy

Smoke, and then the sea became

Transparent, as it was before…

The wine lost… the waves drunk!

I saw extraordinary figures

Leaping across the bitter air…