Three Translations from an Old Farmer's Photograph

he hits, slurring over. Dragging the hissing plough about from the hill's jagged crown into the rejoicing bedded broad stretch of loam foliating spiked oats. The work, though, the hand: Have done, it cries, jogging the hoe; finish up WILLIAM MEISSNER THREE TRANSLATIONS FROM AN OLD FARMER'S PHOTOGRAPH 1 Here on my desk, the farmer no longer wonders how much morning could stream into his eyes. Or about his mouth: a dark stone well that has swallowed for the last time. His stare was frozen as it bounced along the hill toward the windmill. Now his eyes are hollow, they listen for a hush of dry wind scratching across a paper sky. 2 Fog swarms down the hill like an army of pale flies. 16 The farmer's yellow straw hat holds tight to his last thoughts: the bones of a sparrow in dry grass. I press on the print with yellowed fingers and feel the stiffness of the light around the farmer. Something was about to happen here, but now not even the grass will blink its eyelashes. In the left corner, the windmill on the hill watches the highway bloat with cars. It wraps itself with fog and tries to hide, like the skeleton of a man who died standing up. IVAN ARGUELLES ode to theodore aubanel few of us there are who really fit the magnesium shirt while tricking out the styles of the silk worm's nightmare the brothers are at the window with their Parisian blades seriously concerned about our steadfast progress backwards into the race oh provence we shout with a glee that borders on burning oranges oh theodore aubanel with your celluloid fruit brilliant as the august sky of a cubist we swiftly put on an eyelid we investigate the shoulder for disease it's all right we can go ahead despite the incoherent sadness that ravages 17 ...