Ode to a Profound Sadness




I wish to sing a profound sadness that I won’t forget,
a tough language.  How often.

In my country Autumn is born of a dry flower,
of a few birds; at times I believe of my abandoned nape

or the penetrating steam of certain rivers of the plain
tired of the sun, of the people who at their banks
enjoy a life without majesty.

When you arrive to live amongst sacks of carbon
and you sense that your skin takes hold
of disgust,
of repugnant solitude; that being is an island without carnations,
you desire Autumn, the wind that catches leaves
the same as souls; the wind
that bends without heaviness the drunken herbs,
to envelop them in the solace of death.

No; I wish never to return to this earth;
All my flesh pains me, and where there had been a kiss
the air makes me fester.
In the florid Summer I’ve seen a bluish horse and
a transparent bull
drinking in the breast of rivers, innocent, its blood;
trees of veins, filled,  lost in the tepid labyrinths of the body,
in the oppressed, anxious flesh.  In Summer . . .
My days descended by the shadow of my face
and laid over my gut, my skin pure, murmuring,
enveloped in the sweetest clarity.
Like a madman, deafened, untiring,
the reed shattered the rose, the agitated bedazzling breast,
Without veils, a day without thought rests
indifferently in the void,
without man, with a twilight that comes with a sword.

A filthy brilliance burns me, flowers of the sky,
the great, majestic plains.
I wish to sing this profound sadness unearthed,
but, oh, I feel the sea arriving at my mouth.


Ricardo E. Molinari