Poesía

Sueño De La Plata

O are you again chasing the crazy

Silver in a vast river

That flows with muddy dreams

And rippled waters like divine hope

And escape from all that does not work

In reality.  In ships with heavy anchor

The only salvation in squalls and storms

Myths and utopias of Caesars and giants

Plates of gold or peace at last

 

O have they said there is a pure land

Of goodness and truth, or dripping with silver

Deep in the interior like a warm womb

Or a clearing in the forest where no dogs bark

And no savages attack you as you prepare your supper

And the Virgin protects even the roughest man

And the stars encircle the most perfect sky

 

They are counting their money from the day

I am pondering my dubious poetry,

Everyone pursues something to keep their heads

Above water, that might gurgle them down to death,

From the temporary, precarious realm of living

Just outside all Eternity`s play

Of endless inorganic and lifeless day

 

I wander the streets, I buy a book of Lorca

From a kiosk; with dictionary in hand,

Wine from Mendoza, and a dish of spaghetti,

I take in the wonder, the cricket singing

Beneath the moon, your blue and orange

Ribbon, the afternoon that paints your mouth

As it passes through the mountain.

Yellow cupola, wind of silver,

Dios mío, I have come

With the seeds of questions!

I plant them, but they do not flower.

 

O Lorca!  And to be in Buenos Aires,

Like Rome if like anywhere else -

O world!  O gift!  O time!

 

As I take a drink, a heavy, hot cocktail of Lancia,

And the star-trails plunge down to earth,

Knocking out the juices of ground-level dreams,

And the air above is still in a night-blue

Sky; poetry is still a dark, difficult journey,

As Joy soon swings into downward Pain.