TEN YEARS ON: THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT BUT THE SAME

How many bends are there in the Rambla, the road which rolls round the
Coast, circling the city like a diamond necklace? Maybe as many
As the beaches, sand strips, no more, hugging the shore for a beat,
Before giving way to rocks, a high rise, the old gas station,
Or some new bar, serving sweet chunks of beef the size of a shoe, river-
Side views of ever-changing water: silver, grey, blue, incandescent.
Or maybe there are as many bends as fingers in an old pair
Of close-fitting gloves, snug to the touch, the friend which alters texture;
Lends every thing a feeling familiar yet strange, the known unknown,
The security of a world made different in its own image. Like
A new-flavoured ice cream or an emperor’s clothes, neither new nor old,
Visible nor invisible, but cut from a different type of cloth
Altogether. You can’t help but covet them: if you could you’d tear
The shirt off his back, dance in his boxers, think in his broad-rimmed hat.

How has it changed, this place upon which time would appear to have left
No mark? You’ve heard that where once it was, relatively speaking, wealthy,
Now it is, relatively speaking, poor. That a friend who had notes in
Her pocket now has but the jangle of coins; a milanesa
En dos panes costs less than would have done a milanesa en
Ocho panes, if such a thing should exist. You see bars on corners
Where there were none and children on sofas where once cried babies.
Lines in faces resolutely young, a tower which has grown
Like a vine. All these minor signs and yet the change you guessed you
Might have found - the decay or the glory or the transformation -
Remains hidden, beyond the naked eye, and all is as it was and
Always must be, as you are too, the same inevitable self,
Strolling through a city of relaxed charm, round bends in a
River which is also a sea, and it seems that nothing,
Not history nor politics, nor love nor hate nor terror
Could ever alter what it is, and evermore shall be so.


montevideo 25.10.04