It is the early season’s first flush of green.
The young river—more like the childhood of a nearby
spring—
and the foliage about to break: gentle oaks,
a forest rising lightly toward the mountain pass.
So lightly! But the old no longer move to that rhythm.
And over there, the young, taking the lead, go past them
without seeing, they move on and don’t look back.
The old folks watch them. They’re steady,
these people who, at the far side of life,
at the edge of the end, stay suspended,
without falling, that way forever.
While the young shadows go past, so unstable, using
themselves up,
driven by the thirst that one gust of air will satisfy.
—Vicente Aleixandre, from “The Young and the Old” (translated by Lewis Hyde)
Art Credit Hannah Starkey
