EDDIE BOYD ~

DULCE MARIA LOYNAZ ~

XXVI

   You know a man by his love. Love is his natural fruit, the one most

his, the one most free from his surroundings. 

   Love is the only thing that buds, grows and ripens with all the

simplicity, purity and grace of an orange on an orange tree or a rose

on a rosebush.

   There are men who do not love, but nobody knows anything about

them. They have nothing to say to the anguish of the world.

   Love is man's reward. It is his birthmark. Like a red-hot iron,

it brands him. It makes it possible to pick him out of a crowd, to

recognize him, to know him.

   You cannot know a man by the pirouetting words he puts on like

so many colored sequins. You cannot know him by the work of his

hands or the work of his mind because it's life that bestows such

work or rejects it. Be it chance or be it destiny, life giveth and life

taketh away.

    There are many who pass straight through life because they

never turn to face the winds, and there are others who bend like a

bow to find their balance tin the storm, and there are still others who

project themselves beyond, through the wind, shot forth on the sharp,

quivering arrow within.

   The noble word is certainly prophetic. And a useful work gives

us hope. But only love reveals, in a rapid flash of light, the beauty of

a soul.

——————

Dulce Maria Loynaz

ABSOLUTE SOLITUDE

selected poems

translated from the Spanish by James O' Connor

Archipelago books, 2016