Untranslatable Song

        "Everyone needs one untranslatable song."
                    -Roberto Juarroz

On hearing the striped contralto of guinea fowl,
its mock opera quivers the parsley atop its head--

The song makes its imprint
in the air, making itself felt,
a felt world. Here, there,
the stunned silence
of knowing I will not remember
what I heard;

futures
that will never happen,
a fluidity we cannot achieve
except as a child
creating possibility.

This is the untranslatable song
hidden in the earth.


by Claudia Reder