The Water Wheel
… The afternoon arrived
mournful and dusty
… The water was composing
its countrified poem
in the buckets
of the lazy water wheel.
… The mule was dreaming—
old and sad mule!
in time to the darkness
that was talking in the water.
… The afternoon arrived
mournful and dusty.
… I don’t know which noble
and religious poet
joined the anguish
of the endless wheel
… to the cheerful music
of the dreaming water,
and bandaged your eyes—
old and sad mule . . .
… But it must have been a noble
and religious poet,
a heart made mature
by darkness and art.
by Antonio Machado
from Times Alone
Wesleyan University Press, 1989