Ars Poetica

Ars Poetica

Rather than speaking words, I’d prefer to give my hand
to a child, immerse my heart in living foam,
and be quiet, with my forehead full of ocean
under a silent pinetree, pulsating upward.

Rather than speaking words, navigating in a plain
of crushed wheat, growing in waves, where immensity
extracts the juice of summer nights;
and instead of dreaming names letting the wind write them.

Rather than collecting songs harvested in infancy
I’d prefer my cheeks to be like a ravished nest,
and the taste of my lips to be moist with ignorance,

and with the very first delight of someone who has never kissed;
rather than speaking words, to be the words’ own fragrance,
and to be quiet, inside the poem, to be quiet …


By Leopoldo Panero