The Tree of Life Poem by Francisco Urondo

A washbowl has shown me
the face of my future. There are no complications
or demons past my exhaustion, no consular
officials, no tenderness that rises, not even
as steam, over the lit horizon.

I stare down at the sink, at the bowl's walls,
at my face. That look
I cannot find, the acacia I cannot smell—oh,
my children, how could I think I would not be affected,
how could I have detested lament.

But complaint and battle sound at the same bell,
especially when we examine time
from right to left, from inside it
facing backwards, by the lifting patterns
of those ambiguous airs, those crossed lights
of the sin of Alexandria.

translated from the Spanish by Julia Leverone