…………………………In my heart I had / the thorn of passion; /
…………………………One day, I managed to rip it out: /
…………………………Now, I no longer feel the heart.
………………………..Antonio Machado, “Yo voy soñando caminos”. Soledades. Galerías.
………………………… Otros poemas (1907)
………………………………………… .Translator Massimiliano Nastri
It leads all errors back and out to a necessary hill,
Its miracles heal your diverging images in one kaleidoscope.
Ask, now that you are getting old, without growing into it:
What is it you miss to be happy, though happiness here seems to imply
A change and a will to change that does stay the same,
A mosaicist piecing back a mirror, the craft of being something else?
Since winter has become a veil of frost, instead of blaming it on
The climate, Jupiter, consumerism, imperial peace or war,
Look at how we break the light to cast shadows.
May air not become a habit, absence accepted, a blank shrunk to jewel-size.
Do not forgive on ground of being immaterial,
Do not renounce the self, because pain too is attachment,
For not even the wind will bring the clouds back.
Soften the lichens with blood, mix it to the gold of gorses.
Grey Sparrow Journal 