Carpe Diem Poem by Javier Campos

There’s no longer even one of Carpe Diem’s rosebuds for you and me,
time made it into dust, and nothing;

I don’t know where your youth or beauty might wander now,
or your lovely smile, the lily color of your look,
no one will tell you where in the universe I live,
but in your moments of serenity perhaps,
after a pleasure or other,
a speeding image will pass by
of what you and I had together in an already distant time:
that feeling,
illusory and entranced, where the past seems to come alive again
ah, it’ll be so fast that sleep will close your eyes,
because dawn will make you again young and happy,
and that rose transformed into dust,
frozen flame, or fragrance just gone
will be the forgetting.

(Translated from Spanish by Nick W. Hill)