Solitudes

~ After DOMINGO DESPUÉS DEL VENDAVAL (English Subtitles)
voice and direction, Eduardo Yagüe; poem and translation, Jean Morris.

Riff of violins, aria rising
like a column of smoke, like a hymn
to grey above brown rooftops
and deserted streets.

Nothing blinks behind the shutters.
Whatever passed here has taken
back what it knows.

Now a man with a cane limps down
the street while someone crosses
with haste to the other side,
and a car turns round about.

All destinations can
be foreshortened.

I see you, and you, eating
in a diner: silverware the color
of twigs, plates of leathery brick.
I too am searching for an opening—

Such things somehow
easier to miss than to find.
In the graveyard, tombstones form

a miniature city, echoing the arrangement
of skyscrapers or high rise apartments. What
color is the furniture in them? We walk
one way, and the shadow of a bus

moves in the opposite direction
under the bridge.

No hint of loud yellow, not a taxicab
in sight. On the corner, no one touches
his head to a faded prayer rug facing east.

Only the grocers with brown
paper sacks and cellophane. Not one
syllable of green, nor medley of colors
we tasted in spring.

Someone is searching in the forest;
or maybe he is just out for a walk,
missing the language of leaves.

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