REALISTS

Fernando Rendón

In the misty heath of time,
implacable border guards of reality.
By its sentence—
a suicide who never dies
hangs himself forever.

Forbidden to the ships
to sail away from shores and lighthouses,
to evade the storms
unleashed by fear.

By the arquebus and the crossed cypress wood,
latitudes that once sheltered the dream
were abruptly awakened to death.

Since then,
poets accuse poets of madness,
and, shrouded in scorn,
the still-rebellious dwell
in a kingdom without a king,
where emerald doors
that cannot be seen
lead to an immemorial garden of forces