1904–1973
Ode to a Dead Carob Tree
We were traveling from
Totoral, dusty
was our planet,
pampa encircled
by azure sky:
heat and light in emptiness.
It was
passing through
Yaco Barranca
toward forsaken Ongamira
that we saw
horizontal on the prairie
a toppled giant,
a dead carob tree.
Last night’s
storm
ripped out its silvery
roots,
left them twisted
like tangled hair, a tortured mane
unmoving in the wind.
I walked closer, and such
was its ruined strength,
so heroic the branches on the ground,
the crown radiating such
earthly majesty,
that when
I touched its trunk
I felt it throbbing,
and a surge
from the heart of the tree
made me close my eyes
and bow
my head.
It was sturdy and furrowed
by time, a strong
column carved
by earth and rain,
and like a
candelabrum
it had spread its rounded
arms of wood
to lavish
green light and shadow
on the plain.
The American
storm, the
blue
north wind
of the prairie,
had overtaken
this sturdy carob,
goblet
strong as iron,
and with a blast from the sky
had felled its beauty.
I stood there staring
at what only yesterday
had harbored
forest sounds and nests,
but I did not weep
because my dead brother
was as beautiful in death as in life.
I said good-bye. And left it
lying there
on the mother earth.
I left the wind
keeping watch and weeping,
and from afar I saw
the
wind
caressing its head.
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden.