Now through the window I see the coconut tree
on this moonless night, ghostlike in form.
Tangled hair on its head—like a hijacker's,
the air still.
How terrifyingly black it stands
having lost one leg, balanced on the other.
Yet it was only the other day—when eyes and faces
glowed with the joy of fresh vegetables,
that night too, from that coconut's branches dripped
moonlight's white radiance . . . onto the white bed by the window,
pouring even more whiteness there.
Now all the forests and groves are shrouded
in the deep sorrow of my loss.
Suddenly, unseasonably, winter fell and all the leaves
turned yellow, scattered into gray dust
in this homeless world.
The sky's blue eyes fill with the lonely
piteous cry of afternoon kites.
My world weeps—like a little boy
whose colored balloon has burst;
a cuckoo's call from the hijol branch
brings tears to my heart.
In my guitar's virgin navel, in its throat
now sounds the melancholy scream of anguish.