Portolan

            Para hacerse baquiano hay que perderse alguna vez.
                                                                 (Spanish proverb)

It is not as if eyes did not see

the shipwreck on the horizon

of our time, yours and mine.

But what does it signify to foresee?

It was no specific reef,

for the most perilous are hidden,

nor any iceberg in the night.

Was it night itself, yours and mine,

and a mutiny in steerage,

where all our ghosts had passage?

Ghosts of every age, yours and mine,

losers of living, returned to haunt the cruise.

We have our own eyes, yours and mine

in our own age and epoch, escaping

each reproach in smile.

While misdirecting others we are safe,

for where we sail is not on any map,

and on uncharted seas we have naught

but a portolan of us.

E. A. Costa  14 August San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua