"your quick astute amazements"

If they have compared you
to the fox it’s for the prodigious
leap, for the scud of your feet
which unite and divide, which scuff
and freshen the gravel (your balcony,
the streets near the Cottolengo, the field,
the tree on which shivers my name,
happy, humble, and defeated)—or perhaps only
for the luminous wave which you shed
from your tender almond eyes,
for your quick astute amazements,
for the hurt
of torn feathers which your childlike hand
can give with one clasp ... (more)

Eugenio Montale, translated by Alan Marshfield

Tanzender weiblicher Akt (Dancing Nude), Christian Rohlfs, 1927