^{Translated from the Spanish by Yvette Siegert}

^{For José Eulogio Garrido}

Like inscrutable imprisoned bards,
the blood poplars have gone to sleep.
Out on the hills, the Bethlehem sheep
mouth their grassy arias for the fallen sun.

An ancient shepherd, shaken
to see the light in these martyr throes,
has caught up in his paschal eyes
a batch of chaste and lambent stars.

Cast in orphanhood, he goes down
at word of burial to the praying grounds,
and his shears are autumned with shade.

What’s left of blue is woven dark
in iron lines, and a hound in him with drooping eyes
is chasing after it with his country bark.

 

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Bajo los álamos

 

^{Para José Eulogio Garrido}

Cual hieráticos bardos prisioneros,
los álamos de sangre se han dormido.
Rumian arias de yerba al sol caído,
las greyes de Belén en los oteros.

El anciano pastor, a los postreros
martirios de la luz, estremecido,
en sus pascuales ojos ha cogido
una casta manada de luceros.

Labrado en orfandad baja al instante
con rumores de entierro, al campo orante;
y se otoñan de sombra las esquilas.

Supervive el azul urdido en hierro,
y en él, amortajadas las pupilas,
traza su aullido pastoral un perro.