On Poetic Subjects

Nacho Oliden

In the middle of a night walk,
A bolt has retrieved the light of the streets;
And out there, in the abysmal strait,
The starry stream increases speed.

I feel the fear and I doubt
Whether this is not a warning coming down,
'Cause who shall handle the seas?
And the moon and the tides,
And the winds and the forests,
And reduce it all into a single poem?

Shall we be like the willow that reveres in silvering silence?
Or the crickets and toads with their innocent songs?

Perhaps the farmer’s the wisest:
He looks at the sky, yet not in bliss,~
To tell or not the coming of the rain,
And resumes his craft in the following day.

Nacho Oliden

In charge, with Facundo, of the translation column Paraphrasis, I share hidden or forgotten treasures with the literary world. .

Issue 31
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