Lyricist Homero Expósito (1918-1987) composed lyrics with a more impressionistic style than most, borrowing techniques from Symbolist poetry but with greater sentiment and nostalgia, rather than the occult mystique of the original movement. His songs often conjure up an emotionally suggestive atmosphere, saturated with local flavor and hazed over with poetic ambiguity. The waltz “Pedacito de cielo” offers a good example of his success: the lyrics evoke a complete and complex scene out of very few words, making the most of metaphor, all while giving the singer a glorious vocal line. The result—happy dancers, and an unfadingly fresh take on the familiar theme of transience.
A Small Piece of Heaven
(Tr. Jake Spatz)
YouTube: Miguel Caló with Alberto Podestá
The house had an old metal fencing
Awash with lamenting
And ballads of love.
Dark circles spread under the eyes
Of the grate and the vines
And that window above…
I think of how laughter would light you
When I would recite you
My greatest of rhymes,
And now, after time’s own caprices,
To read those old verses
Brings tears to our eyes!
The years we knew in childhood
Have passed on, have passed on…
The grating is asleep now, and silence has set in,
And there in that small piece of heaven
Remains your old cheer and my love.
The years’ve passed before us
Unkindly, in horror,
And now they’ve left that old hope far behind,
And I think back on your look of mischief
Right after that first kiss’s
Stolen surprise…
The breeze perhaps chilled ever after
The warmth of your laughter,
The bell of your voice…
Perhaps they escaped your dark eyes,
The grate and the vines
And the window above…
Your eyes with their burnt sugar color
Receded to distances
Gold in the sun…
And now you would meet with old fondness
The old grate of bronze
All atremble with love!…
Pedacito de cielo (1942)
Music: Enrique Francini / Héctor Stamponi
Lyrics: Homero Expósito
La casa tenía una reja
pintada con quejas
y cantos de amor.
La noche llenaba de ojeras
la reja, la hiedra
y el viejo balcón…
Recuerdo que entonces reías
si yo te leía
mi verso mejor
y ahora, capricho del tiempo,
leyendo esos versos
¡lloramos los dos!
Los años de la infancia
pasaron, pasaron…
La reja está dormida de tanto silencio
y en aquel pedacito de cielo
se quedó tu alegría y mi amor.
Los años han pasado
terribles, malvados,
dejando esa esperanza que no ha de llegar
y recuerdo tu gesto travieso
después de aquel beso
robado al azar…
Tal vez se enfrió con la brisa
tu cálida risa,
tu límpida voz…
Tal vez escapó a tus ojeras
la reja, la hiedra
y el viejo balcón…
Tus ojos de azúcar quemada
tenían distancias
doradas al sol…
¡Y hoy quieres hallar como entonces
la reja de bronce
temblando de amor!…