The Sky Over Lima Page 23

  Now the vessel I will take one evening, searching for you,

  will never leave this port, nor cleave the seas,

  it will travel into infinity, its prow pointing ever upward,

  seeking, as an angel would, its celestial isle . . .

  Oh, Georgina, Georgina! By heaven! My books

  will wait for you above, and surely you’ll have read

  a few verses aloud to God . . . You will tread the western skies

  in which my fervent fancies are snuffed out . . .

  and learn that all of this is meaningless—

  that, save love, the rest is only words . . .

  Love! Oh, love! Did you feel in the nights

  the distant thrall of my ardent cries,

  as I, in the stars, in the shadows, in the breezes,

  wailing toward the south, called out to you: Georgina?

  Did, perhaps, a gentle zephyr bearing

  the ineffable perfume of my formless longing

  pass by your ear? Did you hear something of me,

  my dreams of your country estate, of kisses in the garden?

  Oh, how the best of our lives is shattered!

  We live . . . for what? To watch the days

  with their funereal hue, no sky in the still waters . . .

  to clutch our foreheads in our hands!

  to weep, to long for what is ever distant,

  and never to step across the threshold of dreams.

  Oh, Georgina, Georgina! to think that you perished

  one evening, one night . . . and I all unknowing!

  The Peruvian consul tells me: “Georgina Hübner is dead . . .”

  You are dead. You are, soulless, in Lima,

  opening white roses beneath the earth.

  And if our arms are destined never to intertwine,

  then what heedless child, born of hatred and pain,

  made the world, unwitting, while blowing soap bubbles?

  About the Author

  JUAN GÓMEZ BÁRCENA has degrees in comparative literature, philosophy, and history. The Sky Over Lima, his debut novel, won the Ojo Crítico Award and was a finalist for the Premier Roman Award in Chambéry. It has been translated into English, Portuguese, and Italian. Gómez Bárcena lives in Madrid, Spain.