The water plays in the moonlight
with its long diamond chains:
It laughs in the shadow, crossing
and twining and glittering, sketching radiant
scribbles of stars.
The water must be reined in
so it rises fine and high. A shiver of spray
dissolves in the air; turns to itself, descends
then, opening itself in slow feathered fans...

But it will not go far. This is sleep-walking water
dancing, walking the edge of a dream,
fettered by fleeing horizons, by nonexistent
landscapes. Blown out by a little spigot.

Water of seven veils, always disrobing and never
naked! When will you surge to burst the marble curb
which holds you, and finally
thrust beyond yourself to pierce the Night!

(Spanish: Juegos de Agua) from the book Juegos de Agua (1945)
Translation by Judith Kerman, first published in Calyx, Winter 2000-2001