CANZONET Poem by León de Greiff

It rains outside the window (Verlainesque
rain, if not in my heart:
my heart ran away one morning
in pursuit of another song).

It rains outside the window (melancholic
rain, in some ways so poetic
- but less, prosaic, or so symbolic . . . )
It rains, it rains, nothing more . . . dismal Rain.

I never knew how to watch the rain
outside the window - philosophic trance -
more often than not it fell upon (so blond
then) my locks - atrophic trance -.

It rains outside the window. I smoke. I write.
It isolates me, the window from the urban
rush . . . and I in my cage, lascivious
bird thirsting always in vain.

It rains outside the window (Verlainesque
rain, if not in my heart)
My heart ran away - capricious one -
after a silly song
without rhyme or reason,
neither here nor there.


May - June 1947.