“It’s New England time,
the sun
comes like an old puritan
and it rises over the ocean
and gives leave to the flight of the birds,
it lights a window in Amherst
where the eyes of a woman contemplate the world….’’
— From “The Balada of New England,’’ by Fernando Valverde (born 1980), translated from the Spanish by Carolyn Forche. The “woman’’ referred to is Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), the famed poet.
