LIKE THE WIFE OF BATH

Let loneliness do its work.

You, like the wife of bath,
Return three times to Jerusalem,
Go back to Cologne,
Breathe the air filled with incense by the censer
In Santiago, in Compostela.

You will come to know that flesh is
As much as or  as little
As Bracciolini’s feelings
When he came acroos the old  manuscripts
Covered with dirt, rubbish and the teeth of mice.

The dust of your time es the same
As the remains of city lyving in ruins.

Traslated from Spanish by Rowena Hill