Catullus on Lake Garda

A sleek yacht dallying on iridescent unpredictable waters
That can turn in an instant into high rearing waves
When the ambushing wind swoops down from the Dolomites;
A man among friends, laughing, swapping gossip and bon mots,
Mercurial Catullus holds court in the bathtub of the gods.
Deftly he tacks round in circles under butterfly sail,
Now tender, now vicious, with a sly rascal’s grin,
Tearing at life with sharp teeth and fingernails,
Looking for the cracks in mighty statues.
Taking his pleasures with a sniff of disgust,
He sucks down the oyster with barely a gulp
And tries on new clothes with a yawn and a sneer.
There is nothing more frivolous than seriousness
And nothing pettier than grandeur,
But what is a man if he does not yearn
For the unattainable, the ultimate bliss?
Poetry is folly, but more noble at least
Than the games of politicians and the lies of priests.
Out there on the water he is in his tricky element,
Away for a while from the pompous world’s pretence,
Squinting like an augur into the shifting light,
To shadow the moon day and night with quick guile,
Or perhaps, after all, just to fall in season and be still.