Las Estatuas

When it rains, the statues give me a certain feeling.
They can never go out as a couple with umbrellas,
and they remain solitary as if in penance.

Pointing out the fatality in the squares,
they watch seriously as carriages and maids pass by.
They don't laugh because they never had a childhood.

Large puppets, still, no one plays with them.
But if a bad shadow were to erase them forever,
what pain would fall upon Buenos Aires.

When it rains and I go to sleep, the statues
watch over pale until morning comes,
and they are guardians of the birds' dreams.

They try to convey their memory without words
and ask us for the small alms of looking at them
when they want to tell us a story of the homeland.