La Novia Ausente

Sometimes I review those hours
when I was a student and you were the beloved
who with your smiles scattered stars
to all the young men of that neighborhood.

Ah! the warm nights, Ah! the fantasy
of our happy twenties,
when only your laughter was heard
and I didn't have my gray hair.

We walked arm in arm and you sighed
because very close I said, 'My dear,
see how the moon gets tangled in the pines
and its silver light kisses your temple?

To the rare spell of night and reseda
the park leaves trembled too
and you asked me to recite to you
this 'sonnet' that Rubén dreamed of:

(spoken)

'The princess is sad! What does the princess have?
Sighs escape from her strawberry mouth
that has lost its laughter, that has lost its color.
The princess is pale on her golden chair,
the keyboard of her sonorous key is silent
and in my glass, forgotten, a flower faints.
What elves achieved what no longer exists?
What bony hand was spinning my woes?
And what proud sorrow today has made me so sad
sad like the echo of cathedrals?

Ah! I know, I know. It was the absent girlfriend
the one who, when I was a student, loved me.
That when she died, I left a kiss on her forehead
because she was cold, because she was leaving.