Like a Prelude
Like a prelude
I wrote the secret of the words of love.
First the clover field then the clef.
Wise words
placed gently in my breast like doves.
A stream of memories flows through my blood
a bonfire still strong from the time of other lives
that we call love.
Like a prelude the rain came.
I wove my hair on my own.
I kissed wood
walls
harps
that smooth, worn stone that slipped into the river.
I also kissed the air you breathed
in the faithful nook that knows no death.
I went out to the stream. A lamp in my hand.
I knew the music that sings in the night.
Looking in a Mirror
Looking in a mirror
I see life passing by, a crossroad
of arrivals meetings
love like a piano open
in the night.
Moments too pass by
unfaithful words poems
written the way one
carries a bird about to die
in the hand.
I look in the mirror
as if looking inside my soul.
And I can linger in the memory
lift my hand and polish pale thoughts of the past
very, very slowly.
Years have passed since I’ve seen as I do now
the clear waters of the beach
where an anemone could
beat very softly against
the breast of a man.
I forgot the path to Paradise.
Near us
the peak beckoned us to an embrace.
Heart and sorrow beat as one.
Ships
clouds
times
shadows
translucent springs
solstices passed by
but undivided love is visible
in the mirror.
from Concerto de outono (Autumn Concerto, 1981)
Bird on the Mouth
Your birds rain softly
on my trees and also
on these lips that sing to you.
I pretend I’m made of earth
or I’m a blackberry in your lap
on your shore of breeze and pale fish
Receiving the flavor of your landscape:
moist young birds from your breast.
Here I am, my love, here you rain down on me.
from O paxaro na boca (Bird on the Mouth, 1952)
Mystic Camellia
Such a cold glow cuts through the soul
flower of celestial flesh
tiny flower petal by petal
lips that kiss yet barely touch
This flower that is offered without passion
without waywardness
Perhaps a beatific contemplation
for a mystique of Knowledge
I was still writing my name
like a little girl and I knew who you were
already submerged
in the avatars of a shadow
I lingered in a park of eucalyptus tress
in my beloved town
and I heard of the return of that ambiguous shadow
told by the stars
And I knew about a heart hidden
in the coverlet of sunsets and camellias
knew of the life written
like leaves destined to fade
on a deadly afternoon
lost in the rooms of autumn
on the banks of the Sar forever facing death
You wrote the secret pages
of life’s fable
with a bouquet of lilacs for death
You knew that when night begins
the souls of misfortune are revealed
—And you put it in a book—
And you knew how the hours transgress
when time is erased
—And you put it in a book—
And you knew that the void in souls
bears a sorrow of its own like a shaded fountain
—And you put it in a book—
Perhaps you knew
when to close your eyes with a bouquet of lilacs
—And death writes the book—
from Memoria Solar (Solar Memory, 2004)
Canticle To Be Read In The Dark
Thinking of Martin Codax
Soon the time of total transparency passes
the words that slide over a passage of suns
waves of the wild sea
hands that grip
lips and waist like a Stradivarius
at the moment when the shadow was lost forever
Oh God, will he come soon!
How soon the parading voices in the sacred place
the bodies that sketch the evening caress
I wish I never had a lover
nor had pursued the kingdom of fleeting nights
nor breathed the pause we call love:
Oh God, will he come soon!
The spinning of rain persists in memory
and we perceive a shadowed breath in the distance
have you seen my lover
perhaps turn his gaze with implicit surrender
hair mouth waist all with a moan:
Oh God, will he come soon!
A leaf, intact, falls like a whimper
perhaps turning the gaze to contemplate time
dance oh beautiful body
in the center of the movement where the sea is high
and without knowing the exact shape of the delay:
Oh, God, will he come soon!
Sleep dream die perhaps
wait for the meeting to turn into caress
and bathe in the waves
in the very living waters of life
delicate syllables sudden absences
getting lost in the kingdom of lament:
Oh God, will he come soon!
A Cup Now
I’ve just burned wood maybe nights
in the withered outskirts. The wind blows
against the closed window.
Hands hair back of neck all extinguished
where incantations escape.
I was left in the limbo of sadness
I don’t know the color of the sky
I baked the loaf of my loneliness
over the warm ashes
Water weeps from the fountain.
If I find a cup now
I’ll fill it with tears.
Now That Spring Has Returned
Homage to Aquilino
up over Seivane in the fields of Abadín
and is leaving sapwood in the wicker bushes
Now that the old flowerings are returning
and a delicate breeze fragment of writing
is freeing the soul.
Now that I perceive the presence of my lover
when the birds arrange the heavenly equinox
and the oxen in Lamanide
carry a solar disk in their horns
The village was left behind
with the purest of pages written in snow
the beginning of the homeland
the innocent poverty that children breathe
and tempers the soul
Do you remember, my love?
The light left shapes of solitude
and the coolness of the stones
could alter the path of the river
an Impressionist scene in the fleeting morn,
That was when
the young girls went to gather ferns.
You must remember the times when the changing leaves
the spaces dotted by a limpid rain
the texture of the pink blackberry blossom
the uncertain distance between life and death
there in Vilarente.
Dusk descended like a canopy
over the fields of Mondoñedo
to the rhythm of Latin hexameters.
It was the consecration of spring
in the essence of trees the joy of vertigo
the memory of eclogues:
Silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena.
The new word arrived
in the fable of love in the principle of music
in the unexpected splendor of apple trees.
A letter from Vergil would arrive:
Sunt nobis mitia poma.
The dark peonies fled
far from the adolescent heart.
You had yet to enter the houses of death set on stilts.
from Códice Calixtino (Codex Calixtinus, 1986)
