We present this work in honor of the poet’s 65th birthday.
Waiting for them each quarter
Are neither surgeons nor doctors
They don’t have to travel to Paris or Nice
They don’t follow fashion trends –
Since they can’t find magazines and newspapers
Because the roads to the villages were blocked for months
But even if they could, they couldn’t read them
Because as children they were denied education, because
They were not sent to school
In a cafe, once more I heard
Your voice – those sparse and frugal notes.
Do they not say that you spoke your native Greek
With an English accent?
Briefest of visions: eyes meet across the cafe;
A man of about my age – eyelids heavy,
Perhaps from recent pleasures.
I begin the most innocent of conversations.
Again I see that image;
Ancient delight of flesh
Against guiltless flesh.
Sweeter still, in its remembering.
Most innocent of conversations: once more, I am mistaken.
He leaves; the moment lost – and to forego
The squalor of this place, I read again your lines; those sparse and frugal notes.
In a taverna, you found beauty, long ago.
And when you draw, with your slim, swift pen
The image of that memory – time’s patient hostage;
Then how can I forget him, that boy whom you could not forget,
Or that music, in a foreign language?
Families, when a child is born,
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.
Ma,
I’m coming home
that mountain towering
over our city like a blue hue,
beckons
in the molasses folds of midnight
his voice
softens the folds of my ears
and the south-easter
sings in b-flat
as it winds through my empty heart
Ma,
I’m coming home
my heart overflows with yearning
and the tears roll down my cheeks
like rocks
and pull the breath from my lungs
i have walked through the skin
on the soles of my feet
winding through another country’s streets
another people’s pain
I miss
the sea
and the smell of salt
that finds its way to our front door
on summer morning’s
swollen with heat
I miss the voices and words
of my people
and the way their tongues
hold words in their mouths: flat and rough then sometimes flat
and smooth
the blood in my veins
beats to a rhythm
I cannot find in this green land
Ma,
I’m coming home
that mountain towering
over our city like a blue hue,
beckons
in the molasses folds of midnight
his voice
softens the folds of my ears
and the south-easter
sings in b-flat
as it winds through my empty heart
Ma,
I’m coming home
it’s time to leave the world behind
now it’s you who
I want to lay
beside
We present this work in honor of the 10th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Was there a touch of spring?
Did she have a pink dress on?
And when she smiled, her shyest smile
Could you almost touch the warmth?
And was it your first love, a very precious time?
Was there the faintest breeze?
And did she have a ponytail?
And could she make you feel ten feet tall,
Walking down the grassy trail?
Was it your first love, a very precious time, time?
Now they got me trying to define, in later life
What her love means to me
And it keeps me struggling to remember, my first touch of spring.
Was there a touch of spring, in the air?
And did she have a pink dress on?
And when she smiled, her shyest smile
Could you almost touch the warmth?
Was it your first love,
A very precious, very precious, very precious time, time.
I submitted to
the most poisonous stings to
suck his lips
he swore on the conscience of
beehives not to assault
the flowers of my scarf
Then he unbuttoned
my shirt and mingled with
me just like a bee falling
head on into
a glass of honey.
In honor of May Revolution Day, we present this work by one of Argentina’s most innovative poets.
To regain what was lost
I had to first lose what I had
to accomplish a goal
I had to endure pain
If in order to be in love
it was necessary to have been hurt
I have then suffered enough
I have then shed my share of tears
Because after all, I have realized
that we don’t enjoy it as much
until after we have suffered first
Because after all, I have understood
that the tree has blossomed
from beneath its roots.
We present this work in honor of the 125th anniversary of the poet’s death.
One night
one night all full of murmurings, of perfumes and music of wings;
one night
in which fantastic fireflies burnt in the humid nuptial shadows,
slowly by my side, pressed altogether close, silent and pale,
as if a presentiment of infinite bitternesses
agitated you unto the most hidden fibers of your being,
along the flowering path which crosses the plain
you walked;
and the full moon
in the infinite and profound blue heavens scattered its white light;
and your shadow,
fine and languid,
and my shadow
projected by the rays of the moon,
upon the sorrowful sands
of the path, joined together;
and they became one,
and they became one,
and they became only one long shadow,
and they became only one long shadow,
and they became only one long shadow…
Tonight
alone; my soul
full of the infinite bitternesses and agonies of your death,
separated from you by time, by the tomb and by distance,
by the infinite blackness
where our voice cannot reach,
silent and alone
along the path I walked…
And the barking of dogs at the moon could be heard,
at the pale moon,
and the chirping
of the frogs…
I felt cold. It was the coldness that in your alcove
your cheeks and your temples and your adoréd hands possessed
within the snowy whiteness
of the mortuary sheets.
It was the coldness of the sepulcher, it was the ice of death,
it was the coldness of oblivion.
And my shadow,
projected by the rays of the moon,
walked alone,
walked alone,
walked alone along the solitary plain;
and your shadow, svelte and agile,
fine and languid,
as in that warm night of springtime death,
as in that night full of murmurings, of perfumes and music of wings,
approached and walked with mine,
approached and walked with mine,
approached and walked with mine… Oh, the shadows intertwined!
Oh, the corporeal shadows united with the shadows of the souls!
Oh, the seeking shadows in those nights of sorrows and of tears!
We present this work in honor of the 85th anniversary of the poet’s death.
I do not wish anyone to be near my sadness—
Not even your dear step and your loved face,
Nor your indolent hand which caresses with a finger
The lazy ribbon and the closed book.
Leave me. Let my door today remain closed;
Do not open my window to the fresh wind of morning;
My heart today is miserable and sullen
And everything seems to me somber and everything seems vain.
My sadness comes from something further than myself;
It is strange to me and is not of me;
And every man, whether he sings or he laughs or he loves,
In his time hears that which speaks low to him,
And something then stirs and awakens,
Is perturbed, spreads and laments in him,
Because of this dull voice which says in his ear
That the flower of life in its fruit is ashes.
The appointed lot has come upon me, mother,
The mournful ending of my years of strife,
This changing world I leave, and to another
In blood and terror goes my spirit’s life.
But thou, grief-smitten, cease thy mortal weeping
And let thy soul her wonted peace regain;
I fall for right, and thoughts of thee are sweeping
Across my lyre to wake its dying strains.
A strain of joy and gladness, free, unfailing
All glorious and holy, pure, divine,
And innocent, unconscious as the wailing
I uttered on my birth; and I resign
Even now, my life, even now descending slowly,
Faith’s mantle folds me to my slumbers holy.
Mother, farewell! God keep thee — and forever!
Poets Corner 