To José Maria Palacio

Palacio, good friend,

is spring

already dressing branches of the black poplars

by the river and the roads? On the steppe

by the deep Duero, spring is late,

yet so lovely and soft when it comes!

Do the old elms have

a few new leaves?

The acacias must still be bare

and the sierra mountains with snow.

O white and pink mass of Moncayo,

there, so handsome in the Aragon sky!

Are brambles in flower

among the gray rocks,

and white daisies

in the slender grass?

In those belfries

the storks must be arriving.

The green wheatfields

and brown mules in the seeded furrows,

and with april rains the farmers

who plant the late lands. Now bees

are sipping rosemary and thyme.

Are the plums in bloom? Violets left?

Furtive hunters, with partridge

decoys under their long capes

cannot be missing. Palacio, good friend,

are nightingales already on the riverbanks?

With the first lilies

and first roses in the orchards,

on a blue afternoon, climb to the cemetery

of Espino, high Espino, where she is in her earth.