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The Song in the Mexican Cantina
(after Odysseus Elytis)
Here where the sun washes the courtyards
every day at dawn and glistens in the arched rock,
tell me, is it the song in the Mexican cantina
I heard in Morelia lingering on this Aegean wave?
Is it a corrido with guitars and trumpets? Tell me,
is it the song in the Mexican cantina exciting
the swallows to chatter in the skies
as they dart among the palm trees below?
When the firm-breasted girls claw the backs
of their lovers just as the faint glow of morning
appears in the east, tell me, is it the song
in the Mexican cantina comes drifting
across the oceans, across the seas, tell me,
is it the song in the Mexican cantina
turning back the coverlet, guiding the arms
through the omicron motions of love?
High on the Pyramid at Teotihuacan where
every day is an offering to the sun, tell me,
is it the song in the Mexican cantina
wandering down to the Valley of Anahuac,
spilling out to all the seas of the world,
tell me, is it the song in the Mexican cantina
women are swaying to in the streets of Chora?
Tell me, is it the song in the Mexican cantina
the fisherman waves with his arm
as we dine in the taverna called Ononas?
Tell me, is it the song in the Mexican cantina
cooling our brows with the sea music of
cold waves, fire sun, and the moon's rigging?
Beyond sea and horizon, tell me is it the song
in the Mexican cantina that charms the solar wind,
spawns the weather front where the mountain drops
into Andros Bay? Tell me, is it the song
in the Mexican cantina far down the beach
carrying the lyric of violins, trumpets and guitars?
While tourists from the empire stride in the cool
noon of April or the oven evenings of August,
and the moon slaps its heel and spins around,
do you hear a girl sigh in the caves below
the marble cliffs? And do you hear the guitarrón
strum a glide of swallows into flight?
Tell me, is it the song in the Mexican cantina?
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