Y EL ÓBOLO BAJO LA LENGUA

                                        RELIC

 I found this jawbone at the sea's edge:

There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed

To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust

Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold:

In that darkness camaraderie does not hold.

Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws,

Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose

Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws

Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach:

This is the sea's achievement; with shells,

Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.

Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these

Indigestibles, the spars of purposes

That failed far from the surface. None grow rich

In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh

But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.

Ted Hugues.

Y EL ÓBOLO BAJO LA LENGUA

                ROBIN SON

I am the hunted King

     Of the frost and big icicles

             An the bogey cold

             With its wind boots.

I am the uncrowned

     Of the rainworld

             Hunted by lightning and thunder

             And rivers.

I am the lost child

     Of the wind

             Who goes through me looking for

                    something else

             Who can´t recognize me though I cry.

I am the maker

     Of the world

             That rolls to crush

             And silence my knowledge.

                       Ted Hugues

Y EL ÓBOLO BAJO LA LENGUA

SEPTEMBER

We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:

No clock counts this.

When kisses are repeated and the arms hold

There is no telling where time is.

It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still:

Behind the eye a star,

Under the silk of the wrist a sea, tell

Time is nowhere.

We stand; leaves have not timed the summer.

No clock now needs

Tell we have only what we remember:

Minutes uproaring with our heads

Like an unfortunate King's and his Queen's

When the senseless mob rules;

And quietly the trees casting their crowns

Into the pools.

Ted Hugues.

Y EL ÓBOLO BAJO LA LENGUA

EXAMINATION AT THE WOMB-DOOR

Who owns these scrawny little feet? Death.

Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.

Who owns these still-working lungs? Death.

Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.

Who owns owns these unspeakable guts? Death.

Who owns these questionable brains? Death.

All this messy blood? Death.

These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.

This wicked little tongue? Death.

This occasional wakefulness? Death.

         Given, stolen, oh held pending trial? Held.

         Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.

Who owns all of space? Death.

         Who is stronger than hope? Death.

Who is stronger than the will? Death.

Stronger than love? Death.

Stronger than life? Death.

         But who is stronger than death?

                                                             Me, evidently.

         Pass, Crow.

         Ted Hughes.