Nocturno / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Nocturne

I hoped to stay alone at the house with the plateresque façade. I struggled for a long time reestablishing the use of the bolts. My steps were wounding the sonorous floor and shredding the old carpet of dust.
     Individuals with vain shapes were extinguishing the lanterns when the night began, surrounding me with agonizing gloom, and the two-story building was disappearing in resemblance of hair loosed by a hurricane.
     I was anxiously awaiting a portent.
     I have seen a woman of noble physiognomy, with features sculpted by the memory of grief. She was occupying a sudden break in the shadows and bringing her face close to the head of a coffin.
     The fracture of a crystal phial was giving off a harmonious sound and the phantasmagoria was foundering in the impenetrable darkness.




Las formas del fuego (1929)




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