Family Study

By Pavol Janik

Always when I think of you

dawn breaks above Buenos Aires

and the Atlantic has the inexplicable color of your eyes.

Exotic birds

nest on out TV aerial

until the announcer

has a pearly hairdo

and complete blonde smile.

She claims that eternity has already lasted a whole year.

The weather forecast

announces in her place

a rainbow parrot.

For our wedding route

it wishes us little cloudiness

and success at least as large as the discovery of America

or the record flight of the ostrich from Australia

to the zoological gardens of Europe.

Always when I think of you

dawn breaks above Buenos Aires

and the wind whirls the pamphlets

of all the airlines in the world.

The Atlantic does not admit any other continent.

It’s clear as a stone of precious clarity.

Despite its twinkling depth it resembles a question

which posed passionately by your body.

Children search tirelessly for an answer

till now unwritten in books

and cut out colorful pictures from it.

It happens at home

behind whose windows fireworks blaze every evening.

Always when I think of you

dawn breaks above Buenos Aires.

And today, too, the Atlantic is completely upset.

It’s completely bashful

as its accustomed only to invisible phenomena.

(1981)