through years and journeys and moons and suns
and earth and weeping and rain and joy
or is it only now that
they come from your roots,
only as water brings to the dry earth
burgeonings that it did not know,
or as to the lips of the forgotten jug
the taste of the earth rises in the water?
I don’t know, don’t tell me, you don’t know.
Nobody knows these things.
But bringing all my senses close
to the light of your skin, you disappear,
you melt like the acid
aroma of a fruit
and the heat of a road,
and the smell of corn being stripped,
the honeysuckle of the pure afternoon,
the names of the dusty earth,
the infinite perfume of our country:
magnolia and thicket, blood and flour,
the gallop of horses,
the village’s dusty moon,
newborn bread:
ah from your skin everything comes back to my mouth,
comes back to my heart, comes back to my body,
and with you I become again
the earth that you are:
you are deep spring in me:
in you I know again how I am born.
II
Years of yours that I should have felt
growing near me like clusters
until you had seen how the sun and the earth
had destined you for my hands of stone,
until grape by grape you had made
the wine sing in my veins.
The wind or the horse
swerving were able
to make me pass through your childhood,
you have seen the same sky each day,
the same dark winter mud,
the endless branching of the plum trees
and their dark-purple sweetness.
Only a few miles of night,
the drenched distances
of the country dawn,
a handful of earth separated us, the transparent
walls
that we did not cross, so that life,
afterward, could put all
the seas and the earth
between us, and we could come together
in spite of space,
step by step seeking each other,
from one ocean to another,
until I saw that the sky was aflame
and your hair was flying in the light
and you came to my kisses with the fire
of an unchained meteor
and as you melted in my blood, the sweetness
of the wild plum
of our childhood I received in my mouth,
and I clutched you to my breast
as if I were regaining earth and life.
III
My wild girl, we have had
to regain time
and march backward, in the distance
of our lives, kiss after kiss,
gathering from one place what we gave
without joy, discovering in another
the secret road
that gradually brought your feet close to mine,
and so beneath my mouth
you see again the unfulfilled plant
of your life putting out its roots
toward my heart that was waiting for you.
And one by one the nights
between our separated cities
are joined to the night that unites us.
The light of each day,
its flame or its repose,
they deliver to us, taking them from time,
and so our treasure
is disinterred in shadow or light,
and so our kisses kiss life:
all love is enclosed in our love:
all thirst ends in our embrace.
Here we are at last face to face,
we have met,
we have lost nothing.
We have felt each other lip to lip,
we have changed a thousand times
between us death and life,
all that we were bringing
like dead medals
we threw to the bottom of the sea,
all that we learned
was of no use to us:
we begin again,
we end again
death and life.
And here we survive,
pure, with the purity that we created,
broader than the earth that could not lead us
astray
eternal as the fire that will burn
as long as life endures
EPITALAMIO
Recuerdas cuando
en invierno
llegamos a la isla?
El mar hacia nosotros levantaba
una copa de frío.
En las paredes las enredaderas
susurraban dejando
caer hojas oscuras
a nuestro paso.
Tú eras también una pequeña hoja
que temblaba en mi pecho.
El viento de la vida allí te puso.
En un principio no te vi: no supe
que ibas andando conmigo,
hasta que tus raíces
horadaron mi pecho,
se unieron a los hilos de mi sangre,
hablaron por mi boca,
florecieron conmigo.
Así fue tu presencia inadvertida,
hoja o rama invisible,
y se pobló de pronto
mi corazón de frutos y sonidos.
Habitaste la casa
que te esperaba oscura
y encendiste las lámparas entonces.
Recuerdas, amor mío,
nuestros primeros pasos en la isla?
Las piedras grises nos reconocieron,
las rachas de la lluvia,
los gritos del viento en la sombra.
Pero file el fuego
nuestro único amigo,
junto a él apretamos
el dulce amor de invierno
a cuatro brazos.
El fuego vio crecer nuestro beso desnudo
hasta tocar estrellas escondidas,
y vio nacer y morir el dolor
como una espada rota
contra el amor invencible.
Recuerdas,
oh dormida en mi sombra,
cómo en ti crecía
el sueño,
de tu pecho desnudo
abierto con sus cúpulas gemelas
hacia el mar, hacia el viento de la isla,
y cómo yo en tu sueño navegaba
libre, en el mar y en el viento
atado y sumergido sin embargo
al volumen azul de tu dulzura?
Oh dulce, dulce mía,
cambió la primavera
los muros de la isla.
Apareció una flor como una gota
de sangre anaranjada,
y luego descargaron los colores
todo su peso puro.
El mar reconquistó su transparencia,
la noche en el cielo
destacó sus racimos
y ya todas las cosas susurraron
nuestro nombre de amor, piedra por piedra
dijeron nuestro nombre y nuestro beso.
La isla de piedra y musgo
resonó en el secreto de sus grutas
como en tu boca el canto,
y la flor que nacía
entre los intersticios de la piedra
con su secreta sílaba
dijo al pasar tu nombre
de planta abrasadora
y la escarpada roca levantada
como el muro del mundo
reconoció mi canto, bienamada,
y todas las cosas dijeron
tu amor, mi amor, amada,
porque la tierra, el tiempo, el mar, la isla,
la vida, la m
area,
el germen que entreabre
sus labios en la tierra,
la flor devoradora,
el movimiento de la primavera,
todo nos reconoce,
Nuestro amor ha nacido
fuera de las paredes,
en el viento,
en la noche,
en la tierra,
y por eso la arcilla y la corola,
el barro y las raíces
saben cómo te llamas,
y saben que mi boca
se juntó con la tuya
porque en la tierra nos sembraron juntos
sin que sólo nosotros lo supiéramos
y que crecemos juntos
y florecemos juntos
y por eso
cuando pasamos,
tu nombre está en los pétalos
de la rosa que crece en la piedra,
mi nombre está en las grutas.
Ellos todo lo saben,
no tenemos secretos,
hemos crecido juntos
pero no lo sabíamos.
El mar conoce nuestro amor, las piedras
de la altura rocosa
saben que nuestros besos florecieron
con pureza infinita,
como en sus intersticios una boca
escarlata amanece:
así como nuestro amor y el beso
que reúne tu boca y la mía
en una flor eterna.
Amor mío,
la primavera dulce,
flor y mar, nos rodean.
No la cambiamos
por nuestro invierno,
cuando el viento
comenzó a descifrar tu nombre
que hoy en todas las horas repite,
cuando
las hojas no sabían
que tú eras una hoja,
cuando
las raíces
no sabían que tú me buscabas
en mi pecho.
Amor, amor,
la primavera
nos ofrece el cielo,
pero la tierra oscura
es nuestro nombre,
nuestro amor pertenece
a todo el tiempo y la tierra.
Amándonos, mi brazo
bajo tu cuello de arena,
esperaremos
como cambian la tierra y el tiempo
en la isla,
como caen las hojas
de las enredaderas taciturnas,
como se va el otoño
por la ventana rota.
Pero nosotros
vamos a esperar
a nuestro amigo,
a nuestro amigo de ojos rojos,
el fuego,
cuando de nuevo el viento
sacuda las fronteras de la isla
y desconozca el nombre
de todos,
el invierno
nos buscará, amor mío,
siempre
nos buscará, porque lo conocemos,
porque no lo tememos,
porque tenemos
con nosotros
el fuego
para siempre,
tenemos
la tierra con nosotros
para siempre,
la primavera con nosotros
para siempre,
y cuando se desprenda
de las enredaderas
una hoja,
tú sabes, amor mío,
qué nombre viene escrito
en esa hoja,
un nombre que es el tuyo y es el mío,
nuestro nombre de amor, un solo
ser, la flecha
que atravesó el invierno,
el amor invencible,
el fuego de los días,
una hoja
que me cayó en el pecho,
una hoja del árbol
de la vida
que hizo nido y cantó,
que echo raíces,
que dio flores y frutos.
Y así ves, amor mío,
cómo marcho
por la isla,
por el mundo,
seguro en medio de la primavera,
loco de luz en el frío,
andando tranquilo en el fuego,
levantando tu peso
de pétalo en mis brazos
como si nunca hubiera caminado
sino contigo, alma mía,
como si no supiera caminar
sino contigo,
como si no supiera cantar
sino cuando tú cantas.
EPITHALAMIUM
Do you remember when
in winter
we reached the island?
The sea raised toward us
a crown of cold.
On the walls the climbing vines
murmured letting
dark leaves fall
as we passed.
You too were a little leaf
that trembled on my chest.
Life’s wind put you there.
At first I did not see you: I did not know
that you were walking with me,
until your roots
pierced my chest,
joined the threads of my blood,
spoke through my mouth,
flourished with me.
Thus was your inadvertent presence,
invisible leaf or branch,
and suddenly my heart
was filled with fruits and sounds.
You occupied the house
that darkly awaited you
and then you lit the lamps.
Do you remember, my love,
our first steps on the island?
The gray stones knew us,
the rain squalls,
the shouts of the wind in the shadow.
But the fire was
our only friend,
next to it we hugged
the sweet winter love
with four arms.
The fire saw our naked kiss grow
until it touched hidden stars,
and it saw grief be born and die
like a broken sword
against invincible love.
Do you remember,
oh sleeper in my shadow,
how sleep would grow
in you,
from your bare breast
open with its twin domes
toward the sea, toward the wind of the island,
and how I in your dream sailed
free, in the sea and in the wind
yet tied and sunken
in the blue volume of your sweetness?
Oh sweet, my sweet,
spring changed
the island’s walls.
A flower appeared like a drop
of orange blood,
and then the colors discharged
The sea reconquered its transparency,
night in the sky
outlined its clusters
and now all things murmured
our name of love, stone by stone
they said our name and our kiss.
The island of stone and moss
echoed in the secret of its grottoes
like the song in your mouth,
and the flower that was born
between the crevices of the stone
with its secret syllable
spoke, as it passed, your name
of blazing plant
and the steep rock, raised
like the wall of the world,
knew my song, well beloved,
and all things spoke of
your love, my love, beloved,
because earth, time, sea, island,
life, tide,
the seed that half opens
its lips in the earth,
the devouring flower,
the movement of spring,
everything recognizes us.
Our love was born
outside the walls,
in the wind,
in the night,
in the earth,
and that’s why the clay and the flower,
the mud and the roots
know your name,
and know that my mouth
joined yours
because we were sown together in the earth
and we alone did not know it
and that we grow together
and flower together
and therefore
when we pass,
your name is on the petals
of the rose that grows on the stone,
my name is in the grottoes.
They know it all,
we have no secrets,
we have grown together
but we did not know it.
The sea knows our love, the stones
of the rocky height
know that our kisses flowered
with infinite purity,
as in their crevices a scarlet
mouth dawns:
just as our love and the kiss
that joins your mouth and mine
in an eternal flower.
My love,
sweet spring,
flower and sea, surround us.
We did not change it
for our winter,
when the wind
began to decipher your name
that today at all hours it repeats,
when
the leaves did not know that you were a leaf, when the roots
did not know that you were seeking
in my breast.
Love, love,
spring
offers us the sky,
but the dark earth
is our name,
our love belongs
to all time and the earth.
Loving each other, my arm
beneath your neck of sand,
we shall wait
as earth and time change
on the island,
as the leaves fall
from the silent climbing vines,
as autumn departs
through the broken window.
But we
are going to wait for
our friend,
our red-eyed friend,
the fire,
when the wind again
shakes the frontiers of the island
and does not know the names
of everyone,
winter
will seek us, my love,
always
it will seek us, because we know it,
because we do not fear it, because we have
with us
fire
forever,
we have
earth with us
forever,
spring with us
forever,
and when a leaf
falls
from the climbing vines,
you know, my love,
what name is written
on that leaf,
a name that is yours and mine,
our love name, a single
being, the arrow
that pierced winter,
the invincible love,
the fire of the days,
a leaf
that dropped upon my breast,