The Frogs

Autumn frogs in the lake

are steamed and broiled down there

while the earth’s hoarseness is sponging them up.

In the dark nighttime we can hear through the yellow

of the quince and the segregated window

merely the echoing acts of tragic pridefulness,

as though all the long-lost Scythian amphorae

tumbled the whole way down from the moon

on stairs of desiccated soil.

I can fancy — the frogs — down there

in the ooze like the tails of some buffalo fallen

asleep during the dry season,

their eyes of slit rubber

listening to the sea beyond the seawall

and to the flight of the receding fresh waters,

rushing from rivers and lands,

into the sea brine — lest the confined currents rot.

Likewise, our youth goes to the wrack and ruin

of the hoary age, lest our tender, perishable flesh go bad.

Oh Lord, all this unfathomable ossified azure above us!

And all this unfathomable night upholding

such devilish powers below!

Whose hatch is it that my orbits are set to face ahead

and my walk on the edge of their precipice

so that I in the nighttime I am all ablaze

with my lunar nape!

English version by Gabriela PACHIA