The Cork
The cork trees are dreaming
their strange wild dreams,
which only the shepherds
and the stones can imagine.
They dream that they are free
and wandering over the earth,
with their roots in the water
and their hair flowing loose.
In the unploughed sky
the clouds are thistles
and the sun is a hawk
which gouges out eyes.
All that is left of dreams
is the insolence of pain.
The pain is real.
The dreams are shadows.
Bound to the earth
by talons of bronze,
the cork trees are dreaming
of impossible destinies.
Armindo Rodrigues, (The World fits into every Moment) 1945