hat.
THE SILLY EWE
The silly ewe comes smelling up to me.
Her tail wriggles without hinges,
Both ends of it at once and equal.
Yesterday the parrot bit her;
Last week the jaguar ate her young one;
But experience teaches her nothing.
THE SNAKE
The chickens are at home in the barnyard,
The pigs in the swill,
And the flowers in the garden;
But where do you belong,
With your lacquered coils,
O snake?
THE YEAR
Days and days float by.
On the sides of the mountains
Blue shadows shift
And sift into silence.
Morning...
The cock crows.
There is that rosy glow on the mountain's edge;
Jose in the door of his hut;
Maria's lace bobbins
Tapping, tapping.
Evening...
The parrot's shrill cry;
Pale silver green stars.
Night...
The ghosts of dead Joses
And dead Marias
Sitting in the moonlight.
Peace--
Depressing,
Interminable
Peace.
BURNING MOUNTAINS
I
A herder set fire to the grass
On the other side of the valley,
And now a beautiful Indian woman
Bends, whirls, undulates,
Tosses her gold braceleted arms into the air--
Then sinks into her gray veil.
II
Fire, dying in smoke,
You stir behind the haze
Like a warrior
Who threatens in his sleep.
VILLA NOVA DA SERRA
The mountains are as dull and sodden
As drunkards' faces,
And the white forgetfulness of rain
Is like a delirium.
Along the filthy crooked streets of the little town,
Street lamps float in pools of mist--
The eyes of children being beaten.
RAIN IN THE MOUNTAINS
Like inexorable peace,
The mists march through the mountains.
One by one the grim peaks sink into the cold arms
of the unspoken.
The little town with the pink and white houses
Looses its hold on the ridge of hills
And floats among cloud tops.
A shaggy donkey, cropping grass in the sequestered church yard,
Walks, with a leisurely air,
Into a wind driven abyss.
TROPICAL WINTER
The afternoon is frozen with memories,
Radiant as ice.
The sun sets amidst the agued trembling of the leaves,
Sinking right down through the gold air
Into the arms of the sea.
The enameled wings of the palm trees
Keep shivering, shivering,
Beating the gold air thin....
TALK ON THE RANCH
It is cold in the circle of mountains,
A fireless hearth.
The stars drift by like autumn leaves.
Only the rustle--
Then,
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