Mid-day
To keep open at mid-day
the windows of the sun-lit patio
overlooking the dining room.
To smell the warm scent of
sun and apples. To say simple things
— things that inspire love.
To drink pure water and in the bottom
of the tall glass see how the corners of
the friendly room converge. To feel
in a peach the roundness of the world.
To know that everything changes
and everything remains the same.
At last to find oneself mature enough
to see in things no more than things:
bread, sun, honey… To be merely
a man who tears petals from a rose
and scratches with his fingernail
a name on a tablecloth…
— translated from the Spanish by Thomas P. Feeny