The vertical moon that takes dawn away
and that saw so many things emerging and being enraptured,
the sea condensing in the River Plate,
the street you forgot to name when later,
you added words to the music,
heard you coming out of the blue maybe in a flute
that stopped in amazement, perhaps
in somebody's absent-minded melody.
Of what whisper and beat, of what whistling without direction,
of what cadence of steps along what spent streets
was tango born, of what silence of lonely men?
The black muzzle and the bitter Creole
that said good-bye to their time
and the poor fair-haired people coming down the ships
and the country in town, with the tenderness
and pain and night and awe
were your cradle and your first steps.
Someone heard the destination of a few chords
lost in the paths of other harmonies
and gathered them turned into the first milonga.
It lulled, mean madonna , in its arms
your youngest tear, tango.
Born of woman, just like men.