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Juan Ramon Jimenez

I Am Not I


              I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
the one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.

The Street Is Waiting For The Night.

The street is waiting for the night.
All is history and silence.
The trees along the walk
are asleep along the sky.

And the sad sky is violet.
an April sky, beautiful
violet sky with gentle
preludes of starlight.

Now the lamps are shining
at the barred windows. A dog whines
at a closed door. A black cat
twirls in the smooth sky ...

Ah! that yellow lamp,
the peace of the blind children,
the nostalgia of the widows,
the presence of the dead!

And the stories that we told
on those April evenings
that have never returned,
while we gazed at the stars!

And the darkness is falling,
sweet and great and peaceful,
among the distant murmurs
of the little villages ...