Ode to the Forest

Where is life born?

Where the magic that transforms the robes of fire

into palpitating flesh,

into flowing blood,

into a kiss reborn,

into a tree arising,

into the meadows that dream of pastures,

into one common pulse

like the sap of the entire forest?

Who affirms his solitude?

Who ignores that somehow he dies

-immensely green-

as the forest expires?

Who does not know he bleeds

when the tree perishes under the ax or flame?

Who says he does not dream

when the jungle sleeps under a mantle of fog

like a great sheet of silence?

-- Juan Carlos Mieses

Translated by Amanda Livoti