Dusk descends on us, while we luxuriate
in damascene sensations, warmth and perfume,
and bathe in voluptuous colors, till
every invocation of the sacred
becomes blasphemy.
And here we sense the presence.
A shapeless creature of air leaps in the dark,
swells suddenly, bursts into petals and daggers.
We hold the moment, that tremelous moment—
what infinite instant!—till the fancy
aburst with lustrous scimitars subsides,
sparks once, and succumbs into a hissing gray.
It is most seen in the bottom of the well,
most felt in the chill breath of the vendaval,
most present in the thick concentric layers
of night—the many joyful names of desire.
And you who have known joy, and apprehend
the obliteration of being, you
who so often speak of imperishable things,
are fatally bewitched by evanescence.
—Constantino Tejero