I hear across the distance a city...

I hear across the distance a city
with its blind, its lovers, its children.
I feel the bustle of its avenues, the perfume of steep alleys,
the quiet of neighborhoods where solitude is a friendly presence.
I sense the happyness of its women like traveling stars.
I hear the racket of markets, the silence of arcades.
A river flows with majestic lethargy
and calm transparence, its blue wisdom.
I’m inside the city in a limpid torrent.
I know its desires, cries, fresh noises
and the immediate fullness of its sunlit veins.
Attention is an ecstacy. How everything responds,
patios or palaces, porches in the shade,
places where we feel tranquill ourselves.
So many bright stars as i wander your streets!
Treasures so alive, labyrinths so simple.
Lights and shadows so seductively fickle.
Here there’s a fragrance to space, to stone flowers,
and the air between the wall and the foliage dazzles.
How not feel yourself light and in love
with so much soft profusion, so much Orient
on fire? These are the contours of grace,
the dance conceived, the original sensuality.
We are all sailors in these streets
over whose rooftops the sun never fails.
The air escapes and with it a few trickled words
twinkling in the stones, in the heat, in the dust.
There are evidences everywhere, pulsing surprises
creating more reality and that much more pleasure.
This is your tranquil and turbulent destiny.
O city! Where so many are born to the sun,
in you we lay hold of authentic wonders
and climb to the summits in white whorls!