II

From the book Ballads and Self-Portraits

Translated by Amanda Castro

I celebrate oblivion and dreams, the hours of renunciation, your

body and the smile, the days turning the corners, the

necessary deaths and your hands, and again like

always, sugar cane in bloom, the sotavento and the sun

Of the Caribbean, blinding, the death that you gave me so

Early, your eyes

I celebrate poetry, the clear almond trees, Bach’s music,

The enchantment of some words: pulpit, crystal,

trapisonda ..., dawn on Saturday in your arms,

Zamilda

I celebrate the afternoons in May and I sense the sky in

August and the palm trees of light, your voice in the darkness

I celebrate, after all, these seven shovels of cold dirt on