IF THE WIND

IF THE WIND

If the wind wants your hat

What can you say?

The wind is a bird of hundred wings.

He knows your smile and your hair.

Wherever you go, he goes,

your houses, your table, your bed.

Today the wind is kind to you.

No gust in your hair.

No gust on your face.

He embraces you too.

Yesterday when you asked him,

"Wind, where did you come from?"

He did not know.

Sometimes when we walk on the sand,

you say: The wind comes from the sea

from the stars and trees.

Polar Bear

OSO POLAR

Desde la noche amé

la ternura del hielo

bajo mis patas.

Su claridad fue el horizonte

y el hermano que busco.

Amé todo lo que se movía

sobre sus costillas

de pájaro en el aire hambriento:

la gaviota,

el león marino.

Así desde la noche,

el aire me traía ciudades

de las que mi madre habló.

La ternura del hielo,

sus edades,

se derriten bajo mis patas.

El mar se abre

como la espalda

de una foca cayendo en el abismo.

POLAR BEAR

From  the night I loved

the tenderness of ice

under my paws.

Its clarity was the horizon

and the brother I search for.

I loved everything that moved

over its bird’s ribs

in the hungry air:

the gray gull,

the sea lion.

Like this from the night

the air brought me cities,

the ones my mother spoke of.

The tenderness of the ice,

its ages,

melt under my paws.

The sea is opening

Like the back

of a seal falling into the abyss.