MIGUEL HERNANDEZ
Perhaps
Perhaps now, of their own volition,
men adorn some serene country treeline
with the carob, the beech, the oak, the pine,
that will supply the timber for my coffin.
Now, perhaps, the lumberjack battles
and works it with murderous blows,
and, perhaps, along the slope of the road
it stands bleeding then resounding falls.
Now, perhaps , he reduces it to geometry,
to flat planks, he who readies
the las t refuge of all those now alive.
And certainly, not perhaps, and for eterni
ty
the dark earth is ready
to receive my definitive goodbye.
Translated from the Spanish by Ted Genoways
ROBERT HAHN
The Flayed Man at the
Fin-de-siecle
"Not to enchant" was the new prescription,
Not to bemuse or charm, but to witness,
And so restore the power art once had,
To transform and to save. But when was that?
