THE PLAIN OF TULUÁ

At the side of the road, the two bodies
Side by side:
From a distance they seem to be making love.

A man and a young girl, slim,
Warm forms
Lying on the grass, devouring each other.

Tightly embracing their waists
Those young arms.

One thinks:

Perhaps they dream, their two mouths,
Their silences, their hands, their eyes, yielding.

But there is no kiss, only the wind,
Only the dry air
Of the summer without movement.

They have fallen one besides the other,
Dead,
At the side of the road, the two bodies.

They must have been slender their two shadows
Languishing,
Adoring each other in the afternoon.

And they must have been terrible their two faces
Confronting
The threats and the flashes of lightning.

Their bodies are of stone, of nothing,
They are make-believe, mutilated bodies.

Ignorant of their fate, their death,
But now, viewed from a short distance,
Quarry of voracious black birds.

Llanura de Tuluá

Llanura de Tuluá

Al borde del camino, los dos cuerpos
Uno junto del otro,
Desde lejos parecen amarse.

Un hombre y una muchacha, delgadas
Formas cálidas
Tendidas en la hierba, devorándose.

Estrechamente enlazando sus cinturas
Aquellos brazos jóvenes,

Se piensa:

Soñarán entregadas sus dos bocas,
Sus silencios, sus manos, sus miradas.

Mas no hay beso, sino el viento,
Sino el aire
Del verano sin movimiento.

Uno junto del otro están caídos,
Muertos,
Al borde del camino los dos cuerpos.

Debieron ser esbeltas sus dos sombras
De languidez
Adorándose en la tarde.

Y debieron ser terribles sus dos rostros
Frente a las
Amenazas y relámpagos.

Son cuerpos que son piedra, que son nada,
Son cuerpos de mentira, mutilados,

De su suerte ignorantes, de su muerte,
Y ahora, ya de cerca contemplados,
Ocasión de voraces aves negras.