At the stormy moment of dawn
at the apprehensive time
these sickles in the corn
Everything suddenly cries higher
than any ear can climb
Philippe Jaccottet
Blattodea
During the flat-line of night
during the contaminate hour
these sausaged-eggs are stown
Nymphs scatter and morph by molt
winged and cock infested
Brandy Adams
"Flat-line of night"--awesome, Brandy. Really. It's simple but I completely understand the time of night you're trying to convey. In fact, I'd say I prefer your first two lines to the original first two lines--sure, we can't really knock something in the anthology, given it's prestige (at least, that's what Dr. Davidson keeps telling me...), and maybe overtly "poetic" isn't always the most important element in regards to meaning, but your first two lines are interesting and informative at the same time. "Stormy moment of dawn," thought not a cliche, reads as more of one than "flat-line of night." Do you get that I really enjoy that phrase?
Likewise, I think I understand what you're going for with "sausaged-eggs," but I don't know about that one. I had to google "stown," because I wasn't entirely sure what the meaning was--if it was meant to be the past tense of "stow," as in to put away, but I didn't find anything? The closest I could get was a possible "chiefly British past participle of -steal-." Perhaps I'm just not grasping, entirely, the poem's intentions here due to my confusion with the last word but, though "sausaged-eggs" is an intriguing idea, it seems defunct and unexpected in comparison to the two lines prior.
As for the last two lines: "morph by molt" is great (though it of course conjures the image of a bird), but I think you should go with Jaccottet's more linear, completed thought. Obviously, you don't need to stay true to anything from the original, it's just an exercise intended to begin your writing, but the last two lines leave me confused--syntactically, it doesn't present a full thought for me.
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