Octavio Paz – The Tanghi-Garu Pass

Anna Berent, The awakening of spring, 1929

Slashed earth:
winter marked the land with its weapons,
spring was dressed in thorns.

Mountains of mica. Black goats.
Under their sleepwalking hooves
the slate glitters, and is grim.

Fixed sun, nailed
to the enormous scar of stone.
Death thinks us.

Terra screpolata:
segnata dall’inverno con le sue armi,
veste di spine fu la primavera.

Monti di mica. Capre nere.
Sotto le zampe sonnambule
risplende accigliata l’ardesia.

Sole fermo, inchiodato
nell’enorme cicatrice di pietra.
La morte ci pensa.