Water in a Blue Bucket
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
LA SIESTA
—Juan Gil-Albert
When I arrive at that secret confine
and they question me, "What is the Earth?"
I should say a cold place where the dictator overbears
and the oppressed cry long tears
and where, in shadows and gold teeth,
injustice does the rounds
taking up his profits from the men of property
and mankind's permanent tragedy; it is a wasteland.
But again, I should have to say,
when in clear altering situations
the land exhales the somnolence
of not knowing the source of one's fatigue,
when the blue sky pulses like an hallucination
and fruit follows fruit on the white tables
and great windows set ajar cool
in the semi-light, we seek out a bower
where we may fall beneath that soft weight.
It is then that I should tell them that the Earth
is an orginal happiness, an inward impulse,
like an unprecedented temptation,
composed both of ardour and renunciation,
a giving up and a giving in, a slow love potion.
___________________
—Medusa
