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Jorge Oliva

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Three Poems in the Loneliness of Columbia University

3 Between the lines of an old song

( . . .Who listens
When someone plays over there a song, a flame?)
                                   Roberto Fernandez de Retamar

When somebody
hums one of those old
songs of Maria Teresa Vera
and goes past, not without a certain uneasiness,
the shady corridors of Columbia University
(I say uneasiness because what is Vera
doing in these corridors?),
which way to look
to escape the sudden sadness,
the cracking nostalgia?
(outside the first snowfall grows stronger),
who listens out there in La Habana
to the rumour of the song?
whose are you yet?
who builds you up again?
who calls your name and sighs
to help themselves to cross
these slow hours of the afternoon
while outside the sun of the tropics burns up daisies
and over in the East dark clouds come out
announcing the imminent downpour
of 3 p.m.?

 

Translated by A. C. Tucker

Page(s) 150

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