When You Learn To Find a Smile

[Xipe Totec]

ENRIQUE GONZALEZ MARTINEZ
Mexican Diplomat and Poet
(1871-1952)

(humbly translated by yours truly)

http://palabravirtual.com/index.php?ir=ver_poema1.php&pid=378


When you learn to find a smile
in the subtle drops that exude
from porous rocks in the mist,
or from the sun, the birds, and the breeze;

When nothing to your eyes remains lifeless,
or amorphous, or colorless, or distant,
and you grasp life and the mysteries
of silence, shadows and death.

When you can cast your gaze at the different
paths of the cosmos, and your effort
becomes a potent microscope
that discovers invisible universes;

Only then in a blazing bonfire
of infinite and superhuman love,
like St. Francis of Assisi, will make brothers
of the tree, the jungle and the beast.

And you will feel in the immense multitude
of beings and things your own self;
and will become fear itself at the abyss
and will become pride itself upon the summit.

Your love will shake the defiling pollen
that stains the very whiteness of the lily,
you will bless the sandy seashores
and cherish the flight of insects;

And you will kiss the briar thorns
And the silky petals of the dahlias…
And piously cast off your sandals
to keep from hurting the stones along your path.