[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Julie—

Sorry to be late to the party. I like your handling of the material and feel that the revisions improve the languid, mysterious tone of the sonnet.

Stanza 2 confused me a bit. I’m thinking that the whole poem is an apostrophe to the “constant moon,” in which the first stanza describes the moon low in the sky over the seawater illuminating the shore and presenting her round face like a communion host. In the second stanza, I assumed that the reflection of the moonlight, broken into petals of light in the rippling water, looked like a pearly rose. I didn’t imagine the rose as being “above” the billows’ blue, but rather reflected in it. Am I misinterpreting the image?

I like the addition of the snail-like glittery trail, and I’m glad you got rid of “inks,” since ink is usually dark. The revision makes the image of the moon setting into the horizon like a bride settling into a wedding bed clearer. The last line, though, is still a bit obscure. I visualized the moon flattening and the moonlight rippling on the horizon as the last bit of moon sank out of sight, as a bride would disappear as drawn into the bedclothes by her eager groom. The problem is perhaps not in your translation, but in the original poem itself, since the sea is both the bed and the bridegroom.

Very nice work!

Glenn