Animal de costumbre / Juan Sánchez Peláez

Creature of Habit

VI

Elena is earth seaweed
Ocean wave.
She exists because she owns the nostalgia
Of these elements,
But she knows it,
She dreams,
And trusts,

Standing on the rock and the coral of the abysses.

Actually, Elena
Knows the simple things,
Because before being a damsel
She was Siren and Ondina.
And before being
Siren and Ondina,
She swam in the whirlwind, in the number, in the fire.

I must have fallen onto the trail, and recalled,
Oh delirious host;
Right there, where the afternoon and dusk are appeased,
They separated me.

I had another love,
Pure like ecstasy,
Fragile like fantasy,
Absolute like my other love.

I heard a trumpet of fog in the desert
My falcons emerged from the foliage.

In all seasons
In autumn or in spring
Elena is earth seaweed
Ocean wave.




Animal de costumbre (1959)




{ Juan Sánchez Peláez, Obra poética, Barcelona: Editorial Lumen, 2004 }