Marta López-Luaces
translated from the Spanish by Alexandra van de Kamp and Juan Manuel López Ramos
Nomad
I come from a people who are condemned
to wander through strange lands.
Three days they walked
in the shadow of Babel
lost among the fog of its speech.
I inherit from their time
the stuttering of their attempts.
Of my race
I possess the trait of the absence that gives me away.
You ask me therefore to declare myself
beyond my blood
but,
before the storm,
before the floods,
before the gaze,
before my orphanhood,
before the fires,
before the shadows that preceded those fires,
there was a before
that my memory asks a ransom for,
but,
my accent cannot
return to its song.
I have arrived too late
the rains have passed,
the rivers have returned to their source,
the cities have raised themselves on the horizon,
and the entrance is forbidden to me
Here, at its doors
I wait for
the resurrection of my memory
into an I that I was
And therefore you ask me
to renounce
my names
my blood
my heritage
and to disguise myself with your voice
and declare myself beyond it all
in this language
foreign to my heart
my race continues in search of the tongue
lost
before infancy.
The Exiles of Olga Orozco
And sometimes the scent of countries
where I have never been comes alive in my
memory
(Olga Orozco)
Olga,
the sense of smell betrays you:
the salt of the sea has also arrived to me
with an infected wind.
And do you know that all of us are exiles
from the countries of childhood?
In autumn,
yellow reigns.
The impurity of the sky
contaminates the rain
and its breeze.
Don’t be afraid,
rest.
As residents of wandering
we listen to you.
Beyond your stones,
don’t give in
either to your doubt
or your death.
I want to think
that with Alexandra at your side
you pass
through the infinite gardens
of memory.
Diana
Against your own nature
the solitude you believe in.
Within you an uninhabited
plague
translates sorrow into distance.
Return to your mountains
recovered
by origins
and by abysses.
Against your own nature
the wrath that spreads
through the soul’s lineage.
Arrive
with pride at your failures.
The secret of the gods
“The secrets of the gods is stored
in man’s very speech”
(H.D.)
The key
is not in the mystery
but in the encounter
of the prophet
with his language.
You will see the words
and you will be satisfied
You will ask
and it will be provided.
translated from the Spanish by Alexandra van de Kamp and Juan Manuel López Ramos
Nomad
I come from a people who are condemned
to wander through strange lands.
Three days they walked
in the shadow of Babel
lost among the fog of its speech.
I inherit from their time
the stuttering of their attempts.
Of my race
I possess the trait of the absence that gives me away.
You ask me therefore to declare myself
beyond my blood
but,
before the storm,
before the floods,
before the gaze,
before my orphanhood,
before the fires,
before the shadows that preceded those fires,
there was a before
that my memory asks a ransom for,
but,
my accent cannot
return to its song.
I have arrived too late
the rains have passed,
the rivers have returned to their source,
the cities have raised themselves on the horizon,
and the entrance is forbidden to me
Here, at its doors
I wait for
the resurrection of my memory
into an I that I was
And therefore you ask me
to renounce
my names
my blood
my heritage
and to disguise myself with your voice
and declare myself beyond it all
in this language
foreign to my heart
my race continues in search of the tongue
lost
before infancy.
The Exiles of Olga Orozco
And sometimes the scent of countries
where I have never been comes alive in my
memory
(Olga Orozco)
Olga,
the sense of smell betrays you:
the salt of the sea has also arrived to me
with an infected wind.
And do you know that all of us are exiles
from the countries of childhood?
In autumn,
yellow reigns.
The impurity of the sky
contaminates the rain
and its breeze.
Don’t be afraid,
rest.
As residents of wandering
we listen to you.
Beyond your stones,
don’t give in
either to your doubt
or your death.
I want to think
that with Alexandra at your side
you pass
through the infinite gardens
of memory.
Diana
Against your own nature
the solitude you believe in.
Within you an uninhabited
plague
translates sorrow into distance.
Return to your mountains
recovered
by origins
and by abysses.
Against your own nature
the wrath that spreads
through the soul’s lineage.
Arrive
with pride at your failures.
The secret of the gods
“The secrets of the gods is stored
in man’s very speech”
(H.D.)
The key
is not in the mystery
but in the encounter
of the prophet
with his language.
You will see the words
and you will be satisfied
You will ask
and it will be provided.
