Venice masks

Thursday, 2 September 2021

The Hometown Girl - Lisímaco Chavarría

The young campesino returned to his humble home
in the evening, tools in one hand,
a bouquet of wildflowers in the other
—a small offering for his beautiful girl

The gold colors of the evening tinge with bronze
the delicate silk of the roses;
and like a line of poetry written in the sky,
a distant row of birds.

The winding road was as silent as a
snake sleeping in the shade;
while the village sugarmill
broadcast to the winds its one-note song

Later the young man’s guitar
picks out a song as he sits under the porch;
the swain with the bouquet of flowers was taken aback
by a rising moon as he sings to his girl.

Lisímaco Chavarría (1878-1913) Costa Rica
Translated by Stephen Duplantier
Source: The Mountain Howler, July 2009  

campesino - peasant farmer

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