Earroyas Male, 45. Spain

The Clothes Pin

How much better it is
to carry wood to the fire
than to moan about your life.
How much better
to throw the garbage
onto the compost, or to pin the clean
sheet on the line,
With a gray-brown wooden clothes pin

(Cuánto mejor es
echar leña al fuego
que quejarse de la vida.
Cuánto mejor es
tirar la basura
en el estiércol o prender la sábana
limpia en el tendedero
con unas viejas pinzas de madera)

At dawn she lay with her profile at that angle
Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel.
Her hair a harp, the hand of a breeze follows
And plays, against the white cloud of the pillows.
Then, in a flush of rose, she woke, and her eyes that opened
Swam in blue through her rose flesh that dawned.
From her dew of lips, the drop of one word
Fell like the first of fountains: murmured
'Darling', upon my ears the song of the first bird.
'My dream becomes my dream,' she said, 'come true.
I waken from you to my dream of you.'
Oh, my own wakened dream then dared assume
The audacity of her sleep. Our dreams
Poured into each other's arms, like streams.

La señora habla

La tormenta caía sobre los robles
y mi esposo y yo
nos sentamos en la penumbra
¡escuchando!
mirábamos por la ventana,
apagadas las luces,
veíamos el musgo
erizarse
a causa de la fuerza del viento.
Frente a nosotros había
dos velas prendidas
juntas;
nuestra casa era sólida
y sus altas flamas se mantuvieron
inmóviles.
Que sea siempre así
cuando la lluvia agite
el musgo
adelante y atrás
allá arriba
sobre mi cabeza
como llamas en la furia
final.

THE LADY SPEAKS
A storm raged among the live oaks/ while my husbund and I/ sat in the semi-dark / listening! / We watched from the windows, / the lights off,/ saw the moss/ whipped upright / by the wind´s force. / Two candles we had lit / side by side / before us / so solidy had our house been built/ kept their tall flames / unmoved./ May it be so / when a storm sends the moss / whipping / back and forth / upright / above my head / like flames in the final / fury.