The body is this sunlit town-square
where old men pass the time
and the café on the corner,
with its tattered awning and metal chairs,
is the palace of idlers
who talk for the love of talk.
Your too-human ear, lacking
that animal sharpness,
doesn't quite get what they say.
Now a dog scatters a gaggle of pigeons
bobbing in unison among the crumbs.
A summer morning at its work:
the hand of light pressing
on the whitewashed wall,
the bell tower sweeping its heavy shadow
across the pavement.
The ties that bind us,
held together by this simple
homeostasis.
El cuerpo es esta plaza soleada
donde unos viejos hacen tiempo
y el café de la esquina
con su toldo raído y sus sillas metálicas
es el castillo de los indolentes
que han hecho su negocio
del hablar por hablar.
Tu oído, demasiado humano,
no capta lo que dicen:
carece de la astucia del animal terrestre.
Ahora un perro dispersa las palomas
que bullían unánimes
entre migas de pan.
Es un trabajo diurno: una mano de luz
sobre el muro encalado del verano,
el volumen del campanario
barriendo con su sombra el pavimento.
La salud de los vínculos
es esta sencilla homeostasis.
The editor, Paul O'Prey, translated these poems from Spanish. The translations and original poems are presented on facing pages, allowing the reader to see the subtle divergences that are made. The poems in English are striking for the way they move outside of time. There’s a poetic strangeness that grows richer with each rereading, and yet the poems are easy to read. The language is simple and unadorned but precise, and with a trusting quality to the tone: nothing overtly flashy is needed here. This is crisp, compressed, imagistic language that handles the abstract masterfully.
