PUERTO DE LA CRUZ
Black sands the sea
plays at bluffing in El Puerto
leaving in the air directions
of adventures and dreams
and taking away at will
silences of malvasía.
Since childhood its doors
opened to the horizon,
it faced the waves
and took charge of sailing
without granting respite
to tempests and risks,
for in Puerto de la Cruz
there is such a marine depth
that columns and skyscrapers
cannot distort it.
It gave thread to its kites
because it felt very much the owner
of the insular contour
that was taking its flight
asserting itself within
and not yielding ground.
Its streets have resonated
with the different accents
that freedom rides
on the horse of time.
And thus the footprints remain
that other steps smiled
embedding tolerances
that have not fallen into desert.
From all the kaleidoscope
that the weaving of other peoples
spills into its surroundings
it has chosen that ferment
of seabird and smile
that gives permanence to its lands,
gift of people to the sands
and nest to its isolation.
And thus it does not lose its norm
of being closed and awake,
half, stranded in itself,
half, canvas to the wind.
Through Puerto de la Cruz
ideas entered, more than came,
like women giving
their children the breast
and teaching that homelands
cannot fit in a handkerchief.
It was its waters, the waters
bare of thought,
that firmly beat
the island coves.
There was no resentment nor violence,
for these struggles were never
contests of hammer and anvil,
slogans of blood and fire,
but fronts dialoguing
with the restlessness of streams.
And this bridgehead
holds up effortlessly
like an embrace joining
the living and the dead.
A trade wind of tenderness,
a liberal sentiment
of walking straight
inhabits this noble home.
Triangles of white moons,
blades of bonfires in heat,
friends, lighthouses, seagulls
from the seas of memory,
if I say Puerto de la Cruz
I mean companion.
Pedro García Cabrera
