ISSUE: Fall 2007
this daybreak
here on a foreign
shore
on the other half
of the world,
and on another ocean
I felt that the sea
smelled like Chile
after the ruthless
rains,
or the days of fog
when ghosts
and those blessed by miracles come out
to haunt among the hills
and I smelled my little homeland
with its fissures like stories
and I sensed the old women of the town
returning in the afternoons to gaze at the sea
little by little
my homeland
opened up for me
like a diaphanous
bouquet
like a path
to travel
in the delight of the air
and this sea that smelled like Chile
brought back childhood and fear
the violence of the flight
the violence of the return . . .
but also this
intangible thing called
home
kitchen
precious scents
intangible memories
here on the coasts of Maine
I returned to Isla Negra
to those encounters with poetry and
his words rocking gently between the waves
the sea smelled like Chile
I write it now in order to speak
Translated by Roberta Gordenstein
