TO NIMIA VICÉNS
Reading her verses
Jasmine cathedral erected in the breeze,
your snowing petals perfume the world.
Oh house of the wave's foam and the smile,
for the dream, the cloud, the song!
The word, imbued with your essence,
drinks dawn's radiance till drunk;
and in your being's weightless flow
grace is a talent, generosity a calling.
Jasmine grove that time turns into spring...
form of this poetry, so light,
that just in giving us its scent its petals fall.
But in the rhythm that its voice assumes,
everything is dream and music and perfume
because as it passes the world turns into flower.
Luis Palés Matos
English Translation by Julio Marzán