The Deep

by Bragi Ólafsson

Undirdjúpin
The Deep

A ship sails from land.
It moves away like people drift
apart: it becomes smaller
than it was

when it lay in the harbour,
and smaller and smaller still
as the harbour expands
and the sky narrows in.

So little has it become
when it meets the horizon
that if it ever had any hope
that battle is lost — and it sinks

Translated by K. B. Thors.
Originally appeared in, Circumference, Poetry in Translation.