I wanted to go fishing one day,
I felt a little despondent.
I made between the cat’s tails
with a hand an air hole in the ice.
Light rose up from underneath
out of the black mirror ground.
I saw an unsullied garden
and a child who sat there.
He sat at his writing table
writing on a piece of slate.
I recognized the word under
the chalk; it was one of my own.
But then he wrote it again
with neither haste nor shyness,
that which I in my life
never had dreamed to write.
And each time that I nodded
to show that I knew,
he let the water quiver slightly
and it was erased.
(Martinus Nijhoff)
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Based on Topics: Light Poems, Water Poems, Cats PoemsBased on Keywords: shyness