Images - Juan Sánchez Peláez

I

You, who likewise

in the cup of your verb

overflow the liquid.

I, who throw your shout over a cliff

when my shade or my night

blow the fire.

Like plateaus

—like that, like

plateaus—

we who beg and howl in our

ice furrows.

II

Lucid weight

        remote and so remote

from the city that’s called

Quebec

where I have never been

then up and down the stairs

I’m carried       I’m carried by a teardrop

and then I find this white window

I put my index finger on it and I think

it’s a lady from Quebec

and I return

  because I’m solitary

because I’m mundane

to make myself tense or not

and I am

I see myself

with the ace of gold tumbling

with the same eyes in the big and small universe.

III

This is the bee: It buzzes the chosen fruit

This time it’s my father: He waits for me in Vigo

(he has to pass in front of the humans

      and make signs to me)

here’s my queen who is the size of the air

and whose skin and touch are time

here is Vicente Gerbasi who brings an owl

from Mount Ávila

and a squirrel of alchemy

And this is me: white and ancient in my book.

---

Juan Sánchez Peláez (1922 - 2003) Venezuela

Translated by Guillermo Parra

Source: The RumpusThe Rumpus