El episodio del nostálgico / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

The Episode of the Nostalgic One

I feel, leaning out the window, the assiduous image of the homeland.
     The snow glazes the foreign city.
     The moon pins a beacon on top of each tower.
     The tempest birds repose from the ocean, dressed in eiderdown.
     I protect, since yesterday, the orphan from the taciturn gentleman, of unknown origin.
     She recounts frights and dangers, unexpected escapes on fearful horses and in shipwrecked boats. She adds singular observations, indication of an intelligence accelerated by calamity.
     She doubts whether the deceased gentleman was her father.
     She never saw him smile.
     He would pull out, at times, an empty medallion.
     He would look anxiously at the ancient-style clock, with a punctual chime.
     No one can manage to understand the mechanism.
     I have startled, from her bosom, the portent’s black butterflies.




La torre de Timón (1925)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }