To a Breaker of Horses



                               I



Four elements of war
   form the savage horse.
To break a colt is to command the force
   and the weight and the degree:
It is to knock down the vertical of fire
   and to praise the horizontal of water;
To put a brake on the air,
   two wings in the earth.
Strong breaker who harmonizes and plays
   the horse’s four strings!
(Four sounds in war
   form the savage colt.)
And he who raises a musician’s hands
   and puts them
   over the crate of fury
Can witness Harmony
   recently born
   in a honeycomb of tears.
Because breaking a colt
   is like tuning a guitar.


                                  II


Breaker of horses and friend who places
   no boundaries on friendship,
And man given to silence
   as to a precious wine!
Why will you come to me with the taste
   of ancient days,
Of ancient days open and closed
   like flowers?  

Do you come to reclaim the birth
   of a promised tribute,
   breaker of horses?

(Strings that I gave to the dead rekindle:
They recover in my hand the dangerous
   insomnia of music.)


                           III



Simple like metal, man’s metal,
   with the pure sound
   of a man and of a metal;
Dark and humbled,
   but visible still in the gold
   of an original nobility that lasts
   over your forehead;
Man without science, written
   from head to feet with laws
   and numbers, in the manner
   of faithful clay;
And wise in the degree
   of your faithfulness;
And so you come, friend without boundaries,
   and so we see you in the South:
And you harbor a moderate prudence
   in your kidneys.
And benevolence,
   like a flower of salt, in your glance
   you open for us, breaker.


                      IV

Edified late!
The immense curve of a celestial animal
   gives us the earth:
We are two men and a breaker of horses,
   placed in a musical trade.
Man given to silence as to a precious wine,
   you walk on ahead now:
In your forehead the noble custom of war
   has drawn a sign,
And the wisdom in your words
   unmoved by the wind.


                       V


What dark form trembles and resolves
   in front of us?
What choleric sheaf recovers
   your hand, breaker?
(Four sounds in war
   form the savage colt.)
We are two men and a breaker of horses,
   placed in a musical trade.
And the horse is handsome:  his flashing skin
   like night;
With the pulse of the sea, with the gracious
   turbulence of the sea;
Friend in the origin, and delivered to us
   in the purest day of its origin;
Made of movement, battle,
   and fatigue:  our sign.

The horse is handsome like a wind
   that would make itself visible;
But breaking the wind is more handsome still,
   And the breaker knows it!
And so we see him in the South:  rider
   of river and flame;
Seated in the storm
   of an animal that rises like fire,
   and disperses like living water;
His musical fingers affirmed
   in the sonorous crate
As he puts his attention on Harmony
    that is born of war, flower of war.



                          VI




And so we see him in the South.  And when
   vanquisher and without glory
He had stamped in the hot metal
   of the beast his seal and our arms,
Friend without shores!, we have seen him
   regress to silence,
Dark and humbled,
   but still visible the gold
   of an ancient royalty that doesn’t know
   how to die over his forehead.
His name:  Breaker of Horses, of the South.
Breaker of horses,
   there is no other praise.



Leopoldo Marechal