THE HOUSE AMONG THE OAKS Poem by Héctor Rojas Herazo

A vague noise, a surprise in the wardrobes,
the house was ours even more, it searched for our breath
like the fright of a child.
Over the objects there was a lukewarm murmur
a thorn, a hand,
crossing the bedrooms and lighting its furtive
embers in the corners.
The sound of a man, the portrait,
the reflection of air on the puddle
and the day with its firm arrow on the patio.
Beyond the bells, the smoke of the hills
and in a sweet and light boundary, in the breeze,
the bird and the water lightly singing.
All are present there, brother with sister,
my father and the harvest,
the breath of the beasts of burden and the murmur of the fruits.

Inside, the filial sacrifice of the wood
held up the roof.

An invisible rain moistened our steps
of babbling time, of strength, of authority and limit.

The air went by gently, looking for shadows,
voices to spill,
it breathed in the beds,
it left in the faces its golden ash.

It was then the day of leaves, of the potent humming, the day for the pitcher, the honey and the chores.
Like a gift of repose, the night with its load
of remote wheat ears reached our body
Our bread of longed-for splendor,
our amazement
and the lamps spilling over their angels
without hurry in the mirrors.
Like a man that yearned for his part,
his place at our table,
the wind floated sweetly on the tablecloths.

The stillness of the furniture, the voices, the roads,
they were all the silence of the night in the world.

Filling the walls with inaudible presence,
inhabiting the veins standing in front of things.

Our hands looked for an encompassing heat
and the eyes inquire about another impalpable skin.

Something of God, then, reached our windows
something that deepened the breeze between the oaks.