Girona, Winter 2014
Time was the way
David Huerta
What are three daughters doing
with their father
in the scarce sun
of this Catalan forest?
What is he doing
with this useless pout
to hold them—his
three women warriors—
swiftly
in full swing?
What is Time doing
fleeing emphatically
between the feet
between the high poplars
and descending
without concessions
into our shadows?
Not that I disliked the cretonnes
or the petunias
or the carnations
or the almost shy mallows
much less the bold daisies along the fence
My mother spoke to them with unequal patience
or so I think
for in the distance I could see her lips move
as her earth-black fingers
caressed the rough leaves of a lonely geranium
or pointed out the curving path of the gladioli
along the edge of a stone flowerbed
It was a blossoming childhood
the wished-for boyhood of plants
and faint scents that are no more
But as her afternoon monologue
fell before her creatures nailed to the ground
or in faded pots without memories
I thought of words
in the grace of language and invention:
Indian cress
snapdragon
hollyhock
polka dot plant
climbing fig
In our own way, we shared the garden
and a fear as unreal as it could be
that twilight would catch us
talking to ourselves
perplexed or stunned
She in her long vegetable conversation
me in an eternal murmur of voices
like the beating of a heart
that ignores almost everything
except love
Vicente Aleixandre
Death is so deceptive
its spectacle of foam
so obvious
even when it is
your
hand
clenched
on
my
throat
or this pigeon
that is no longer a bird
at the stone fence
Its simulacrum fails
each time this damp patina
of the afternoon in love
envelops us
Its mask falls
every time you tell me
what you wouldn’t give
to fill the time
with four hands
Buffalos
May writing too become an immense
crystal balloon and burst
Osvaldo Lamborghini
The words slide
down the page
like a slow
buffalo trail
through the savannah
They go to water
at the great lakes
the holy water
watering place
The word buffalo
seems so foreign here
Here is Montevideo
the very center
of the city
crushed by the light
of the incandescent
African morning
Not without effort
consciousness
listens to
the trot of language
in its animal slip
A yellow humming
cracks
and now the herd
is just
a cloud of dust
heading towards the poem
