Valente José Angel - Landscape with yellow birds: selected poems

Archipelago Books gratefully acknowledges the generous involvement of Nilda Echarri, Aurelio Major, Andrs Snchez Robayna, Joan Tarrida, Circulo de Lectores, Galaxia Gutenberg, Lannan Foundation, the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Spain-USA Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. archipelago books is a not-for-profit literary press devoted to promoting cross-cultural exchange through innovative classic and contemporary international literature www.archipelagobooks.org Cruzo un desierto y su secreta desolacin sin nombre. El corazn tiene la sequedad de la piedra y los estallidos nocturnos de su materia o de su nada. Hay una luz remota, sin embargo, y s que no estoy solo; aunque despus de tanto y tanto no haya ni un solo pensamiento capaz contra la muerte, no estoy solo. Toco esta mano al fin que comparte mi vida y en ella me confirmo y tiento cuanto amo, lo levanto hacia el cielo y aunque sea ceniza lo proclamo: ceniza. I cross a desert and its secret nameless desolation. I cross a desert and its secret nameless desolation.

My heart is parched as stone with nocturnal explosions of its own being or nothingness. Still, there is a distant light, and I know I am not alone; though after so long not a single thought exists to weigh against death, I am not alone. I touch at last this hand that shares my life in which I am confirmed and feel such love, I lift it to heaven and even if it is nothing but ashes I proclaim it: ashes. Though all that I have obtained so far be ashes, so it has drawn me the way of hope.

Hoy he visto mi rostro tan ajeno, tan cado y sin par en este espejo. Est duro y tan otro con sus aos, su palidez, sus pmulos agudos, su nariz afilada entre los dientes, sus cristales domsticos cansados, su costumbre sin fe, slo costumbre.

He tocado sus sienes: an lata un ser all. Lata. Oh vida, vida! Me he puesto a caminar. Tambin fue nio este rostro, otra vez, con madre al fondo. De frgiles juguetes fue tan nio, en la casa lluviosa y trajinada, en el parque infantil ngeles tontos nio municipal con aro y rboles. Pero ahora me mira mudo asombro, glacial asombro en este espejo solo y dnde estoy me digo y quin me mira desde este rostro, mscara de nadie?

Today I have seen my face so foreign, drooping and strange in this mirror.

Harsh, with age it has become other, so pallid, cheekbones gaunt, nose pointing to teeth, weary domestic windows, faithless habits that are nothing but habits. I touched the temples: a being was beating there. Beating. Oh, life, life! I turned away. This face was also once a child, in another time, with a mother in the background. A child with fragile toys in a rainy, bustling house, in a playground, silly angels a city child playing games beneath the trees.

But now it looks at me silent with wonder, glacial wonder in a solitary mirror. Where am I, I ask myself, and who is looking at me from within this face, this mask of nobody?

Empuja el corazn, quibralo, cigalo, hasta que nazca en l el poderoso vaco de lo que nunca podrs nombrar. S, al menos, su inminencia y quebrantado hueso de su proximidad. Que se haga noche. (Piedra, nocturna piedra sola.) Alza entonces la splica: que la palabra sea slo verdad. Extend your heart, bankrupt it, blind it, until in it is born the powerful void of what can never be named.

I know at least the imminent and spent bone of its proximity. Let there be night. (Stone, nothing but nocturnal stone.) Then raise your plea: that the word be nothing but truth.

Debo morir. Y sin embargo, nada muere, porque nada tiene fe suficiente para poder morir. No muere el da, pasa; ni una rosa, se apaga; resbala el sol, no muere.

Slo yo que he tocado el sol, la rosa, el da, y he credo, soy capaz de morir.

I must die. And yet, nothing dies, because nothing has enough faith to be able to die. The day does not die it passes; nor a rose, it fades; the sun sets, it does not die. Only I, who have touched the sun, the rose, the day, and have thought, I can die. (La mujer lo miraba sin respuesta.) Haba un espejo humedecido que imitaba la vida vagamente. (La mujer lo miraba sin respuesta.) Haba un espejo humedecido que imitaba la vida vagamente.

Se apret la corbata, el corazn, sorbi un caf desvanecido y turbio, explic sus proyectos para hoy, sus sueos para ayer y sus deseos para nunca jams. (Ella lo contemplaba silenciosa.) Habl de nuevo. Record la lucha de tantos das y el amor pasado. La vida es algo inesperado, dijo. (Ms frgiles que nunca las palabras.) Al fin call con el silencio de ella, se acerc hasta sus labios y llor simplemente sobre aquellos labios ya para siempre sin respuesta. (The woman looked at him without answering.) There was a foggy mirror that vaguely imitated life. (The woman looked at him without answering.) There was a foggy mirror that vaguely imitated life.

He fixed his tie, his heart, sipped weak and muddy coffee, explained his plans for the day, his dreams for yesterday and his desires for never again. (She studied him silently.) He spoke again. He recalled the struggle of so many days and their past love. Life is something unpredictable, he said. (His words more fragile than ever.) Finally he halted in the face of her silence, drew near her lips and simply cried over those lips now forever without answers.

Cae la noche.

El corazn desciende infinitos peldaos, enormes galeras, hasta encontrar la pena. All descansa, yace, all, vencido, yace su propio ser. El hombre puede cargarlo a sus espaldas para ascender de nuevo hacia la luz penosamente: puede caminar para siempre, caminar... T que puedes, danos nuestra resurreccin de cada da!

Night falls. The heart descends infinite steps, enormous galleries, only to find sorrow. There it rests, there it lies; there, defeated, lies its own being.

The man can heft it over his shoulders to go up again toward the light, painfully: he can walk forever, walk... You who are able, give us our daily resurrection!

La soledad. El miedo. Hay un lugar vaco, hay una estancia que no tiene salida. Hay una espera ciega entre dos latidos, entre dos oleadas de vida hay una espera en que todos los puentes pueden haber volado. Entre el ojo y la forma hay un abismo en el que puede hundirse la mirada.

Entre la voluntad y el acto caben ocanos de sueo. Entre mi ser y mi destino, un muro: la imposibilidad feroz de lo posible. Y en tanta soledad, un brazo armado que amaga un golpe y no lo inflige nunca. En un lugar, en una estancia dnde? sitiados por quin? El alma pende de s misma slo, del miedo, del peligro, del presagio.

Solitude. Fear.

There is a vacant space, there is a place without an exit. There is a blind longing between two heartbeats, between two waves of life there is a hope that all of the doors may have flown away. Between eye and form lies a chasm wherein vision may fall. Between will and action descend oceans of dream. Between my self and my fate, a wall: the fierce impossibility of the possible. Amid such solitude a strong arm feints a blow but strikes nothing.

In a space, in a place where? Against whose attack? The soul hangs on nothing but itself, against fear, against threat, against portent.

Pero no ms all, no debo herirte, no debo herirte ms cuando me acerco con palabras de amor hasta los bordes. Pero no debo herirte... A veces cuando me acerco a ti con tanto amor escondo en lo profundo un spid, un veneno, un agudo cuchillo que ignoraba y que hiere al amor donde ms duele. A veces pongo esta palabra: