RECONCILIATION

Jorge Fernández Granados

maybe we’ll see each other on the far side of
things
pulverized by time and on the verge
of understanding it all and forgetting it all

as always you’ll lift your left
hand with that gesture (half-goodbye half
hello) your dry scowl next to it
in a deep furrow
where hope never nested but did hang around

we walked I remember we walked
with youthful incandescence or something on the
brink

                of disappearing
like the brief, arid sun of the high plains in winter
a brilliant sun though unable to melt the snow
and we only walked to fi ll out that tomb-like
silence

                of steps
since our bones heavy with ages or maybe
simply with an ordinary inwardly pain
carried us

along the very edges along the lost pathways
in search of a genuine image
a space where we’d be vertebraed with veracities

and we walked and walked
as if under our feet the earth arose from
an ultimate battle
from a laborious reading of its indifferent dust
from the tread of footprints
because in each step we did read the vestige
of a dream that’s cut short
like this fi rst autumn day of another century in
which

            I transcribe
what I am supposing a letter otherwise delayed
sent to us (who we were then) the almost
                adolescent specters
sleepless on account of the voices of what’s to
come

maybe in the end we’ll meet up one day
not on the path but in the rhythm of our steps
and we’ll lose touch then
each one of us on his way
each one of us with a map

Translated to English by W. Nick Hill