The Stranger Poem by jackilton peachum

THE STRANGER
(After Spanish of Gabriela Mistral)

She worships a god without form or size--
and she's old enough to die!
She took the garden from us,
-- sowed it with cactus and thorn--
and she breathes the breath of the desert,
loves with a slaking passion of which she never speaks--
which if she ever spoke would be like a chart to a distant star!
She'll be here more than eighty years--
sounding and looking always as if just arrived
with that speech of hers that groans and blows--
which only the animals understand!
And she will die amongst us one night
of some foul disease --
a death outspoken and eerie
only her fate for a cushion!