With a View of the Sea

October, and the sea this morning
rests its cheek against the quays;
the pattering upon the awning’s
seeds of the acacia trees,
keeping a beat. The blazing sun
is hoisting up out of the sea
a piercing stare that doesn’t burn,
just as the rowers sculling by
pierce the water, gazing up
at one far snowy mountaintop.

—from With a View of the Sea by Joseph Brodsky,
translated from the Russian
by Glyn Maxwell and Zakhar Ishov