morpheus

The Dream

While the clocks of the midnight hours are squandering

an abundance of time,

I shall go, farther than the shipmates of Ulysses,

to the territory of dream, beyond the reach

of human memory.

From that underwater world I save some fragments,

inexhaustible to my understanding:

grasses from some primitive botany,

animals of all kinds,

conversations with the dead,

faces which all the time are masks,

words out of very ancient languages,

and at times, horror, unlike anything

the day can offer us.

I shall be all or no one. I shall be the other

I am without knowing it, he who has looked on

the other dream, my waking state. He weighs it up,

resigned and smiling.

(1975)

***

Cuando los relojes de la media noche prodiguen

Un tiempo generoso,

Ire mas lejos que los bogavantes se Ulises

A la region del sueno, inaccesible

A la memoria humana.

De esa region immersa rescato restos

Que no acabo de comprender:

Hierbas de sencilla botanica,

Animales algos diversos,

Dialogos con los muertos,

Rostros que realmente son mascaras,

Palabras de lenguajes muy antiguos

Y a veces un horror incomparable

Al que nos puede dar el dia.

Sere todos o nadie. Sere el otro

Que sin saberlo soy, el que ha mirado

Ese otro sueno, mi vigilia. La juzga,

Resignado y sonriente.

(1975)