Old tavern La Oficina, with my dear friend Luis Miranda (r.i.p.). Photo by Julio Torres, 1999.
Autumn, My Friends
– by Evaristo Carriego –
Autumn, my friends. It has arrived
without us even noticing,
wet, melancholic, silent.
The familiar bustle of the pavement
so joyful on summer nights
fades into prayer. People
leave their doorways earlier.
They leave silently…
On this autumn afternoon, the blind man
sings less frequently the tune that at the corner
the mechanical organ used to wail… How sadly
the neighbour has been wandering for days!
Could she be suffering from some new disappointment?
Melancholic and rainy autumn,
what will you leave behind, autumn, in the house this year?
What leaf will you take away? So silently
you arrive that you frighten us.
Yes, dusk falls
and we feel you, in the homely peace,
enter without a sound… How our spinster aunt
is aging!
