Chanson d’aube

When summer comes
don’t visit the imperial palaces
or take lilacs to Tiananmen Gate.

Remember when on the beaches of Cayo Juan
the Guajira deserts
the water snake of the Amazon
the high rocks of San Agustín
the vast Spanish plaza of Villa de Leyva
and the nights and days of thirty-three
endless moons, we knew love.

Traslated from Spanish by Rowena Hill