Juancito En La Siesta

Little Johnny goes
Running through the old alfalfa field
And a white butterfly carries him
Carries him in its white flight to the cemetery
Where the earth slept with the long dark dreams of ancestors

Little Johnny goes
Playing the tightrope walker along the fences
And a slow horizon of still crosses
Watches his childlike flight of mischief
While the nap collapses
His warm voice of deep distances

And all alone, little Johnny learns in the afternoon
To look from afar, and to see up close

Little Johnny goes
Reading with his little finger, up close
The two gringo names that intertwine him
Blurry with time and suns of high summers
And they remind him of the gallops of wild natives and old plows

Little Johnny goes
Trying that little path to the lagoon
The afternoon flutters like a handkerchief
And a flight of coots is carrying him
Looking at the sky, blonder than the blonde wheat he's treading