LAS SIERRAS DE NEVADA: A SONG

 

 

LAS SIERRAS DE NEVADA: A SONG

 

“The mountains will not go to the Strip. Las Vegas must go to the Sierras. It is a matter of courtesy. They were here first.” --- A Strip Graffiti Artist

 

Listen to them whimper with the wind;

“We were here even before the hunters,
Scorched dry even before the rivers
Have caked into mud, molted into mire.
We will be here till time decrees our end.”

Estábamos aqui antes de oro

En las casas de las malditas;
Entonces, según de principio
Y vergüenza, vamos a sierras;
Porque no? Ellos están viejas.*
 

Not all the lust for life, gold and its lustre

In this pretend paradise-regained matter.
They were there even before hoary time
Stood still currying to man’s sad fantasies
Of earning back his purloined happiness.

Estábamos aqui antes de oro

En las casas de las malditas;
Entonces, según de principio
Y vergüenza, vamos a sierras;
Porque no? Ellos están viejas.*

Arid now, the mountain bends at its feet

Will turn to desert yet, and its hunger
Will be fed by sand clusters ripped by wind
That has brought chill down the border
Twixt the castles and the quiet mountains.

*We were here before the gold

In those houses of the evil ones;
Therefore, as a matter of principle
And courtesy, we go to the mountains.
Why not? They have become venerable.”

It is cold in the city now, the streets dying

To fold up while they can, but they cannot
While the doddering dotards still plying
Them have a penny or two cupped in hands
That tremble with a wish to be full at last.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

The Strip, Las Vegas, 04-03-14