Seems lak to me de stars don’t shine so bright,
Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light,
Seems lak to me der’s nothin’ goin’ right,
          Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me de sky ain’t half so blue,
Seems lak to me dat ev’ything wants you,
Seems lak to me I don’t know what to do,
          Sence you went away.

Seems lake to me dat ev’ything is wrong,
Seems lak to me de day’s jes twice es long,
Seems lak to me de bird’s forgot his song,
          Sence you went away.

Seems lak to me I jes can’t he’p but sigh,
Seems lak to me ma th’oat keeps gettin’ dry,
Seems lak to me a tear stays in ma eye,
          Sence you went away.

In life there is no pleasure
To love and youth unknown,
For love is life’s one treasure,
And love and life are one.

In youth there is one sorrow
To love and life well known,
For beauty fades to-morrow
When youth from love has flown.

But love is like the shower
That waters gardens dry,
And brings to earth a flower
That blooms, but cannot die.

My love must be as free 
    As is the eagle’s wing, 
Hovering o’er land and sea 
    And everything 

I must not dim my eye 
    In thy saloon, 
I must not leave my sky 
    And nightly moon 

Be not the fowler’s net 
    Which stays my flight, 
And craftily is set 
    T’ allure the sight

But be the favoring gale 
    That bears me on, 
And still doth fill my sail 
    When thou art gone 

I cannot leave my sky 
    For thy caprice, 
True love would soar as high 
    As heaven is 

The eagle would not brook 
    Her mate thus won, 
Who trained his eye to look 
    Beneath the sun

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen—and kissed me there.

^{for Willem}

My love,
you are water upon water
upon water until it turns
azure, mountainous.

The horizon fills like sand
between glass marbles. So much
has passed between us—

last night you told me
to press your hand
harder and harder as I pained.

The sunset was at its last
embers. The dark was stealing
the blue light from our room.

I was falling into you.

~ ~

Compress water and it turns to ice— compress beauty
and it loses breath. Gaze at it too long, and even the wide
mirror of the ocean will shatter.

~ ~

My Willem,
between us, God has descended in all His atoms.
We have not yet learned to hold Him.

^{for Willem}

My love,
you are water upon water
upon water until it turns
azure, mountainous.

The horizon fills like sand
between glass marbles. So much
has passed between us—

last night you told me
to press your hand
harder and harder as I pained.

The sunset was at its last
embers. The dark was stealing
the blue light from our room.

I was falling into you.

~ ~

Compress water and it turns to ice— compress beauty
and it loses breath. Gaze at it too long, and even the wide
mirror of the ocean will shatter.

~ ~

My Willem,
between us, God has descended in all His atoms.
We have not yet learned to hold Him.

When the bottle of hot sauce shattered in the kitchen
he stood in the doorframe, shook his head at the mess.

Not worried if I was injured,
mostly curious at what else it was I’d broken.

You are so clumsy with the things you hold,
he never said.

The red stain on my chest bloomed pungent,
soaked any apology.

I used his shirt, the one I slept in,
to wipe the counter and pale-colored kitchen floor.

That night and the next for a straight week
as he prepared boxes to leave

I hunched and scrubbed the tiles. Couldn’t rid myself
of the things that I’d sullied, of the look he left behind.

Little pin-prick geysers, spitting and sputtering; 
Little foaming geysers, that spatter and cough; 
Bubbling geysers, that gurgle out of the calyx of morning glory pools; 
Laughing geysers, that dance in the sun, and spread their robes like lace over the rocks; 
Raging geysers, that rush out of hell with a great noise, and blurt out vast dragon-gulps of steam, and, finishing, sink back wearily into darkness; 
Glad geysers, nymphs of the sun, that rise, slim and nude, out of the hot dark earth, and stand poised in beauty a moment, veiling their brows and breasts in mist; 
Winged geysers, spirits of fire, that rise tall and straight like a sequoia, and plume the sky with foam: 
O wild choral fountains, forever singing and seething, forever boiling in deep places and leaping forth for bright moments into the air, 
How do you like it up here? Why must you go back to the spirits of darkness? What do you tell them down there about your little glorious life in the sun?

It’s the best part of the day, morning light sliding
down rooftops, treetops, the birds pulling themselves
up out of whatever stupor darkened their wings,
night still in their throats.

I never wanted to die. Even when those I loved
died around me, away from me, beyond me. 
My life was never in question, if for no other reason
than I wanted to wake up and see what happened next. 

And I continue to want to open like that, like the flowers
who lift their heavy heads as the hills outside the window
flare gold for a moment before they turn
on their sides and bare their creased backs.

Even the cut flowers in a jar of water lift
their soon to be dead heads and open
their eyes, even they want a few more sips,
to dwell here, in paradise, a few days longer.

^{translated from the Spanish by William George Williams}

Oh moon, who now look over the roof
of the church, in the tropical calm
to be saluted by him who has been out all night,
to be barked at by the dogs of the suburbs,

Oh moon who in your silence have laughed at
all things! In your sidereal silence 
when, keeping carefully in the shadow, the
municipal judge steals from some den.

But you offer, saturnine traveler,
with what eloquence in mute space
consolation to him whose life is broken,

while there sing to you from a drunken brawl
long-haired, neurasthenic bards,
and lousy creatures who play dominos.

Versos a la luna 

¡Oh, luna, que hoy te asomas al tejado
de la iglesia, en la calma tropical,
para que te salude un trasnochado
y te ladren los perros de arrabal!

¡Oh, luna! . . . ¡En tu silencio te has burlado
de todo! . . . En tu silencio sideral,
viste anoche robar en despoblado
. . . ¡y el ladrón era un Juez municipal!

Mas tú ofreces, viajera saturnina,
con qué elocuencia en los espacios mudos,
consuelo al que la vida laceró,

mientras te cantan, en cualquier cantina,
neurasténicos bardos melenudos
y piojosos, que juegan dominó. . .