The bellow of a steamer in the morning <br />woke the coniferous distances, <br />and we stood on deck, <br />spellbound by the Angara, <br />gazing straight to the river-floor, <br />where the painted rocks gleamed <br />through a bright green dimension. <br />We could not trust our eyes. <br />It seemed, at times, in our passage <br />that we could reach over the side <br />and with our fingertips touch bottom; <br />for depth could not be gauged <br />in that transparency of water. <br />Of course I know that danger lurks <br />in the unturbidity of the wave, <br />and that the clearest purling stream <br />may be the shallowest. <br />But deepness isn’t all. <br />I wouldn’t give a tinker’s dam <br />for a stupid stagnant pond <br />where the eye sees nothing plain. <br />Let me be like the flow of a river <br />obliquely struck by the sunset glow, <br />as deep as measureless, <br />with each small pebble shining through!<br /><br />Yevgeny Yevtushenko<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-depth/
