I turn words over in my mind
like shells on the beach.
Looking at the ice plant,
known in these southern latitudes
as "rayitos de sol,"
I think of one of my
earliest memories,
walking on a leash
that was held by my mother,
fascinated by ice plant
that was fascinating the bees.
I still remembered that day
sixty years later,
and so did my mother.
The color of these
"rayitos de sol"
is exactly the same,
but there are
fewer bees.
I couldn't speak even one
language properly that day
on the leash, and now
I speak many, because
something excited my curiosity
when I was five.
Don't know how many languages
I learned, because those from Before
began to leak through
like rayitos de sol.
And the lives that went with
those languages
(as some colors go with others
and do not clash)
were what?
Rayitos de sol?
Perhaps.
Rayitos de many things,
de pena, de amor,
de curiosidad,
de erudición,
del puro placer
de este mismo sol
que, tal como las flores,
es igual.
In San Diego, or Alexandria,
in Italy or the south of France,
on a beach in Brazil,
or Polynesia,
or here,
the little rays
of the sun
are everything.
