Dulcia Linquimus Arva

Friendship made my old ones
with these wide-open spaces
conquered field intimacy
and bound like a scout
earth and fire and air and water.
Soldiers and ranchers
feeding on morning
and the burdening horizon
sounded the depths of austere day.
Bright as a river
evenings cool as water
in the well
and the four seasons
were like a refrain.
In dust clouds they saw
oxcarts and horses
and were cheered by the splendor
of dew on cattails.
One fought the Goths,
another in Paraguay wore out his sword;
all embraced the world
and the countryside received their desire.
High days
of sky and plain.
Knowledge of the fields was theirs
firm in the saddle
ruling the plain
works and days
and bulls in their generations.
I live in the city and know nothing of it,
an oppidan of a street in a neighborhood:
far-off streetcars help my sadness
with that cry loosed in the night.