DIANE ACKERMAN.

After several dense (though hopefully not turgid) ethnohistorical essays, I thought I'd give us all a break and post a poem I liked from the Ninetieth Anniversary issue of Poetry. Here's Diane Ackerman:

LIKE YOUR FACE

After Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Like your face,
a thousand-leafed day,
and I who rejoice
in what's measureless
measure the onset of evening
and the imagined scent
of your eyelashes
shivering like flowers in the wind.

What fate threw us together?
The same chance
that drew airlanes for the bats
swooping like neuroses
from the sky, fluttering
over frail autumn leaves
which cannot harm or save
or be anyone's victim.