SEAWALL
I'm going to make a seawall
with my small happiness...
I don't want the sea to know
that pains go through my breast.
I don't want the sea to touch
the shore of my earth...
I have run out of dreams,
crazy from shadows in the sand.
I don't want the sea to look
at blue mourning in my path...
(My eyelids were auroras
when the storm crossed!)
I don't want the sea to cry
a new rainstorm at my door...
All the eyes of the wind
already cry me as dead.
I'm going to make a seawall
with my small happiness,
light happiness of knowing myself,
mind the hand that closes.
I don't want the sea to arrive
at the thirst of my poem,
blind in the middle of light,
broken in the middle of an absence.
Julia de Burgos
Translated by Jack Agüeros
The Complete Poems of Julia De Burgos, compiled and translated by Jack Agüeros, Curbstone Press, Willimantic, 1997, ISBN 1-880684-24-1