to Rocío Arana
In March I watched the snow fall in Pamplona,when I was unworthy of light and home.
At dawn, the mules no one could control,
the emaciated horses, and the cold.
At night, guard duty that never seemed to end,
the worn-out stars going on forever.
On Nature IV
I’d be in my own country if I were
walking in a hurry through the streets,
through the empty streets of the afternoon,
headed for a geometric sunset.
The bird that leaves a stain on the pure distance
with an erratic zigzag of life.
The lizard illustrating where its path
darted across the white wall as it tried
to keep its tiny heart out of danger
in the miserable crack no one can see.
Because I’m what it fears, and I have feared it,
because life offers nothing but mistrust.
Because You Don’t Appreciate
it’s neither in jerusalem nor what
you call greece, a vase in countless shards
that, even pieced together, don’t cohere.
it breaks free from something you don’t know.
call it music that keeps coming back
to say you are unworthy, that you are
worthless because you don’t appreciate.
it’s in endlessness, in endless tension
that goes beyond the one place where you ache,
and in the vastness of the mournful plains,
and in the past the quiet rivers hold.
you who devour each gift, what’s left for you?
So Nothing Would Be Lost
to Enrique Andrés Ruiz
So nothing would be lost, despite the pride
in being cold, despite the cold at the heart
of pride, after groping in the dark
through the valley of time, among the thorns
of time; so it all would be saved, even
our willful ignorance of laziness,
and, with that, our scorn, the smallest thing
and the immense defiance of the towers;
so nothing of ours would be lost, not even
the error behind everything we see.
