Tuesday, September 27, 2005

El mundo bailó

Estuvimos de pie a la cuesta arenosa de una roca enorme,
y miramos hacia abajo.
La piedra fue como un gran torre.
Por todas partes, las colinas fueron marrones y onduladas.
Abajo, un estanque de margen verde llevaba dos patos.
El cielo encima fue un azul brillante,
pero no tan brillante como los parajitos que bailaban
a lo largo de la cerca de alambre
como joyas.
Las banderas de rezos en nuestras manos
bailaron con el viento y los pajaritos.
Los cuatro de nos otros quedamos de pie,
juntos, tocando manos,
en silencio,
nuestros pensamientos de la paz
y de la compasión
bailando con las banderas, el viento,
los pajaritos.
Todo el mundo bailó en ese momento.

7 Comments:

Blogger Dale said...

I wish my Spanish was better! This has the feel of a real event, but I can't place the landscape. I'm picturing a Tibetan monastery in Castile :-)

9/28/2005 10:55 PM  
Blogger MB said...

Hey there, Dale. It was a real event, but not in Spain though it could have been. Along a back road here in Idaho that weaves among weird and wonderful rock formations. Bluebirds everywhere.

9/29/2005 8:04 AM  
Blogger MB said...

I guess I could add that the place is called Castle Rock Road, I was with, among others, a Spanish-speaking friend, and we were en route to hear His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I guess that could add up to a Tibetan monastery in Castile? ;-)

9/29/2005 9:22 AM  
Blogger Dale said...

I guess I was thrown off by the hills being brown -- the only time I really remember being in Idaho was in Spring, and the hills around the Salmon River were as green as anything in Western Oregon. I guess the land did something else at a different place & time. What effrontery! :-)

This really does have a wonderful, elegiac tone to it -- the happiness feels vivid, but also vanished. Spanish perfect is just a little more abrupt and final feeling than the English past, and you use that difference beautifully. Todo el mundo bailo -- "I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each --"

9/29/2005 12:18 PM  
Blogger MB said...

Damn, you don't miss a thing. I fiddled with imperfect in the rough.

In spring, by the Salmon River and elsewhere, there is greenness that makes me wistful for my Oregon days. But summer, outside the North, quickly turns things yellow-brown. With time, I've come to love the velvet look under slanting sun.

"I grow old, I grow old/I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled..."

9/29/2005 12:52 PM  
Blogger Jean said...

Que lindo! Me encanta tu poesia. Y el azulejo.

9/29/2005 2:16 PM  
Blogger MB said...

Gracias, Jean! Nice to see you coming up for a little air now and again.

9/29/2005 5:16 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home