wire stretched

While the Chinaman was crying on the roof
without finding the nakedness of his wife,
and the bank president was watching the pressure gauge
that measures the remorseless silence of money,
the black mask was arriving at Wall Street.

This vault that makes the eyes turn yellow
is not an odd place for dancing.
There is a wire stretched from the Sphinx to the safety deposit box
that passes through the heart of all poor children.
The primitive energy is dancing with the machine energy,
in their frenzy wholly ignorant of the original light.
Because if the wheel forgets its formula,
it might as well sing naked with the herds of horses;
and if a flame burns up the frozen plains
the sky will have to run away from the roar of the windows.

This place is good for dancing, I say this truth,
the black mask will dance between columns of blood and numbers,
between downpours of gold and groans of unemployed workers
who will go howling, dark night, through your time without stars.
O savage North America! shameless! savage,
stretched out on the frontier of the snow!

federico garcía Lorca/robert Bly