In honor of the Chilean holiday, the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, we present this work by one of the great Chilean poets of the 20th century.

Chilean
1892 – 1951
Beneath the white arch,
terrified of the blue winds,
I throw a glance
(like lips on their way to a kiss)
through the balustrade at the yellow ocean.
How it lives, the odour
of rosebush and orange after rain.
A cat — flower of the winter thistle —
electrifies itself, begins to sing;
flies look for smoke-blackened beams;
chickens cluck and shake out their underclothes;
and my heart, trying
to house its sorrow when all covering has been ripped to pieces,
goes barefoot, and blindly.