Ante El Impostor
Para el petulante poeta que fingía
por radio, ella sÓlo dedicÓ su lavado.
FregÓ y fregÓ, sin inquietarse,
hecha una rana piadosa
susurrando su blues bajo el sauce.
Envuelto en la gran tormenta de sus mentiras,
semejante a la que amenazaba la casa,
este hombre mostrÓ sus efectos.
En su voz había una aureola
de rayos y truenos, inequívocos sofismas.
Con el rostro mojado, ella-Zarza,
no detuvo su canto. La lluvia
dañÓ su ropa, pero no interrumpiÓ
la radio. El agua sucia incesante
no la desilusionÓ.
Al relavar, concentrada en la soga,
con los sauces de frente y la radio distante,
ella se preguntÓ: ¿dÓnde leí
que una gran obra-tormenta
se disuelve en una lluvia de barro?
In the Presence of the Impostor
To no one else but the self-satisfied
poet play-acting on the radio
did she dedicate her washing.
She scrubbed and scrubbed, her mind free of worries,
becoming more and more like a pious frog
murmuring its blues beneath the willow.
Trapped in the great storm of his lies
like the one that threatened to destroy the house,
the poet showed his affectations,
his voice crowned with a halo
of thunder and lightning, outrageous sophisms.
With her face wet, she-Zarza
went on singing regardless. The rain
ruined her clothes but still the radio
played on. The relentless filthy water
could not dampen her mood.
While busy with the second wash, her eyes fixed on the clothesline,
facing the willows and with the radio out of earshot,
she wondered: Where was it that I read
that a great storm-work would be dissolved
in a rain of mud?
Fernando Kofman translated by Ian Taylor