Mitad del Mundo greetings from the middle of the world … where today
so here i am writing to you ... and a kind of stepped stele
a teeming tourist town surrounds a pyramid of stone
marks the centre of a tourist town whose building will never be done
dark glass of mountains all around quarries craters
around it glassy black hills quarries a crater
the wind full of sand · yet this is where the earth
wind full of sand · but here the earth has been levered from its axis
was lifted from its axis at a stroke and placed
and placed on a monument’s pedestal
upon a monument as if the day had
as if today were the day it had suddenly frozen
stopped it in its tracks · why I am unmoved I cannot tell
solid · what my indifference stems from i cannot tell
as if the lack of any shadow might bring things into true
but it’s as if the absence of any shadow brought everything into line
in the tat shops fuzzy 3-D picture-postcards the compass
grainy reversible figures on postcards in the souvenir stores
of the world · colourized prints of a spanish fortuna
the circumference of the earth · coloured prints of a spanish fortuna
with her globe · the memory of the turquoise blue
with her globe · the memory of the turquoise blue
of high heels in a window that were a shade too blue
of pointed shoes in a window their blue too blue
for you · phrases overheard in passing like: pedir la luna
for you · carelessly overheard phrases such as pedir la luna
and plaques with a celestial machinery intended to express
and celestial mechanics on panels all describing matters
what the models merely show · a dusty light glows through
stencils merely depict · in this blankness a dustier light
the emptiness more dusty the heavens left behind a shell
flares up the deserted sky has nothing more to yield
and when you ask I cannot find a word
and for your questions i can find no expression
to offer other than … in the end it was this very stasis
other than ... but in the end this standstill
that fetched down our endless circling through the universe
at least from high up brought the way even we go round in circles
to find its cognate · and it was here at the equator the metre
down to an equation: it was apparently here at the equator
was defined according to the arc described by a pendulum
they determined the metre as the unit of length a pendulum swung
an arc larger than the space between us when I go away
which was further than i from you after any farewell
translation by Karen Leeder
translation by Iain Galbraith