Mexican Landscape

Look at the landscape: vastness down below,

vastness on vastness in the sky. Between,

sapped at their footing by the wild ravine,

the high sierras rise, a distant show.                  

Look, where the grim half-burnt savannah broods:

gigantic block upon gigantic block,

torn by the earthquake from the living rock.

Never a track and never a path intrudes.

Adesolate and burning atmosphere,

studded with eagles, high, ethereal,

like nails on which unhurried hammers fall.

Tremendous darkness, and tremendous fear

and silence, interrupted if at all

by the triumphal gallop of the deer.

Translated by Timothy Ades