M i g u e l S i l v a O t e r o —

translated by C h r i s H o l d a w a y

from The Ocean that is Oblivion / La mar que es el morir

“Our lives are the rivers
that flow into the ocean
that is oblivion”.

—Jorge Manrique

1.

But it is impossible to live as do the rivers
singing through hillsides and lilies
or through acute pinnacles and broken foliage
without a premonition of the ocean that awaits them,
that green and curling infinite
in whose heart of salt the rivers transform into fish.

It is impossible to ramble as does the fire
illuminating faces of beaming dancers
or dyeing seams of anguish into painful looks
without heeding the breeze that will kill its light
nor the rain that turns its roses to ash.

Midway through life we sing to the death
that is ocean to the rivers and water to flames.

2.

Symbols of death do not dream of being bones,
nor the empty sockets nor the tunnels of crypts.
Bones are scarcely the keys to death.

When bones cease to be bones
and microbes quake through their rigid whiteness,
it is the birth of the poetry of death,
it is the appearance of the creative sign of death.

The death that I sing is no cemetery cross,
nor metaphysical illusion of sleepwalking minds,
nor the gloomy infinite of contrived philosophers.

The death that I sing is a reflective shadow
of white butterflies that cross paths with the wind,
of stems that stir the maternal flesh of the earth,
of clear springs that shake the entrails of the world.

6.

when the church clock halted its hands
and remained forever marking quarter past eleven
the pedestrian had no idea that earth had ceased to trace its orbit
nor that the marble seagull hours expired in the tower
nor that the leaden swallows minutes fell in the plaza
nor that the platinum flecks seconds scattered in the wind

although the church clock has halted its hands
and is yet committed to proclaiming it is quarter past eleven
the tin swamp morning born of darkness does not believe it
nor does the obsidian tide night that drowns colours
nor do the birds that prick the dawn as pins
nor even the drunk opal sailboats that plough through midnight

when the broken spiral of my thinking halts its hands
and my body remains forever marking half past twelve
the dawn stockpile of oranges will ripen to deny my date
the evening will let loose its jasper mane among the pines
she will cry sweet tears into her lace handkerchief
and purchase a small black hat that will suit her admirably

11.

When crossing a plain that the sun has left without trees, I mean to say, with neither birds nor shadows,
half a league from a city deserted for wars and fevers,
my horse suddenly broke into the grounds of an abandoned cemetery.

In the dust lay the rusty crosses and the broken columns,
the offerings of marble and metal scattered over the ground in furious disorder,
as if dust storms and steers rehearsed their rage in that abandoned cemetery.

Life, on the other hand, fought vehemently in the green pride of the elephant cacti,
in the hawthorns and guaco vines that braid their whips through the tombs in ruins,
and transform the paths into wild thickets in that abandoned cemetery.

An inexplicable rose stained the undergrowth with two blood-red flowers,
and I dismounted my horse to take a knee before the rebirth of dead lovers
who continue loving each other beneath the reticent soil of the abandoned cemeteries.

.