El viajero / Ramón Palomares

The Traveler

I let myself look back,
drink a glass and laugh
in everything like the sky
and its toast of fine liquor over my head.

This is how I begin the delicious party
in which the fair
is transformed by my heart
pure, stripped of bad flavors
and matters of contempt.

I enter like this,
resembling the morning winner
or the bird that steals the final star.
This is my luck
and that’s how my dice turn out,
my cards amid the towels that rule chance.

A woman lights up this face
from very far.
Made by her love,
to her I owe the shine of my mouth
and the bath offered in my lips
when beauty possesses me.

Shine so tall in my praise her breasts,
may they become the immortal iris.

Friends, deserters of the leap,
escapees from the honey of the game.

In what part, disseminated,
do the little past glories
sow the years with company
and cry, from nostalgia?

At each day
the sky thickens
and the ships move slowly.

Let us extend this love
and the only dew of kisses.

A toast, a toast to you,
precious love, gone
or coming
or nevermore.

And though this red rose die
and my forehead be crowned one day by the white rose
an intimate and purified pleasure will remain in the air.

No matter how much the airs don't call me
the aroma will live
and happiness will embroider the earth.

If you don’t know my name
my name is traveler,
who am unable to be the trinitarian flower.

But today I posses you, sun,
no less than the foam
or the hidden fish.

Time has passed since my father abandoned the city,
but my presence gives him credit.
And, constant,
the high mountains demolish the light,
and the horses play over the gold
under the final sun.

Brothers, how far,
what air so different do we breathe today,
at your wedding
Were there not tears?
Was the dress not stained by dawn
and did it not rain while we slept?

Does someone think of us
now, facing the plain,
when the descent of certain birds happens?

How long the afternoon
and given to meditation.
Soon, by the tree I look at beside night
dense shores will appear
brilliant toward the sky.

Because of all this I weigh
and compare at the pace of the winds
I see I must be somewhat sad.

But in an instant I blow out nostalgia
and pull happiness from myself
like the most beautiful flower from my body.

And at the pace of stars,
dead people
and disappeared events
I toast the hidden
the unknown birds of the next detour,
telling myself I will never return.

And that’s how I begin my adventure.




1958




{ Ramón Palomares, El reino, Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 }