banner
that pierced
time
with its struggle
and later
waving in and out, left in the cracks
the chalky winter,
snow,
snow of stone,
snow of mad and solitary stone,
then
the cactus of the Pacific
deposited its nests,
its electric hair of thorns.
And the wind loved this immovable
ship and flying swiftly
it granted its treasures:
the beard of the islands,
a cold whisper,
changed into a honeycomb for eagles,
and asked for its sails
so that the sea could feel
the pure stone passing from wave to wave.
The Creation
That happened in the great silence
when grass was born,
when light had just detached itself
and created the vermilion and the statues,
then
in the great solitude
a howl began,
something rolled crying,
the shadows half-opened, rising alone
as if the planets sobbed
and then the echo
rolled, tumbling and tumbling
until what was born was silent.
But stone preserved the memory.
It guarded the opened snout of the shadows,
the trembling sword of the howl,
and there is in the stone an animal without name
that still howls without voice toward the emptiness.
The Tomb of Victor Hugo on Isla Negra
One stone among all,
smooth gravestone,
undisturbed like the proportion
of a planet
here in the solitudes
it was ordained,
and the waves lap at it,
the seafoam washes it,
but it emerges
smooth, imposing, clear,
among the rugged and hard rocks,
round and serene,
oval, resolute
by majestic dead
and no one knows who sleeps surrounded
by the unfathomable coastal fury,
no one knows, only
the albatross moon,
the cross of the cormorant, the firm leg
of the pelican, only the
sea knows it, only the
sad green thunder of dawn.
Silence, sea! Hushed
the seafoam recites the lord’s prayer,
extends its long seaweed hair,
its humid cry
extinguishes
the seagull:
here lies the grave,
here finally woven
for a craggy mounument hurling
its song to cover itself with whiteness
of the incessant sea and its labors,
and buried in the earth,
in the fragrance
of France cool and subtle
sailing its matter,
surrendering to the sea its submerged beard,
crossing latitudes,
searching among the currents,
passing through typhoons and hips
of pure archipelagoes,
until the torrential doves
of the South Sea of Chile,
attracted the tricolored steps
of the snowy phantom
and here it rests, alone
and liberated:
entering the turbulent light,
kissed by salt and storm,
and father of its own eternity
sleeping finally, outstretched,
reclining in the intermittent thunder,
at the end of the sea and its cascades,
in the sails of its own power.
The Three Ducklings
A thousand
times
a thousand
years ago
plus one
a bright duckling flew
over the sea.
He went to discover the islands.
He wanted to talk
with the fan
of the palm tree,
with the leaves of the banana, to eat
the tricolored seeds
of the archipelago,
to be married
and establish
hemispheres populated
by ducks.
In the wild springs
he wanted
to establish lagoons
dignified with day lilies.
He was an exotic duck
to be
lost
in the middle
of the foamy
thickets of Chile.
When
he flew
like an arrow
his two brothers
cried
tears
of stone.
He heard them
fall
in his flight,
in the middle of the circle
of water,
in the central
navel
of the great ocean
and he returned.
But
his brothers
were
now
only
two obscure
stones
of granite,
since
each tear turned
into stone:
the weeping
without measure
petrified
the pain
into a monument.
Then, the wandering
repentant
huddled together his wings
and his dreams,
slept with his
brothers
and slowly the sea,
salt,
and sky,
imprisoned him in his shivering
until he was again
a duck of stone.
And now
like
three
ships
sailing,
three ducks
in time.
The Turtle
The turtle that
has walked
so long
and seen so much
with
his
ancient
eyes,
the turtle
that fed on
olives
of the deep
sea,
the turtle that has swum
for seven centuries
and known
seven
thousand
springs,
the turtle
shielded
against
the heat
and cold,
against
the rays and waves,
the turtle
of yellow
and silver,
with stern
amber
spots
and rapine feet,
the turtle
remains
here
asleep,
and doesn’t know it.
The old man
assumed
a hardness,
abandoned
the love of waves
and became rigid
as an iron plate.
Closing
the eyes that
have dared
so much
ocean, sky, time and earth,
and now, he sleeps
among the other
rocks.
The Heart of Stone
Look,
this
was the heart
of a siren.
Helplessly
hard
she came to the shores
to comb her hair
and play a game of cards.
Swearing
; and spitting
among the seaweed.
She was the image
herself
of those
hellish
barmaids
that
in stories
murdered
the weary traveler.
She killed her lovers
and danced
in the waves.
And so,
time passed in
the wicked
life of the siren
until
her fierce
lover, the sailor
pursued her
with harpoon and guitar
through all the seafoam,
farther
than the most
distant archipelagoes,
and when
she reclined
in his arms,
the sailor
gave her
his beveled point,
a final kiss
and a justified death.
Then, from the ship
the dead
commanders
descended,
beheaded
by
that
treacherous
siren,
and with cutlass,
sword,
fork
and knife,
pulled out
the heart of stone
from her chest,
and, near the sea,
it was allowed
to anchor,
in order that
it could teach
the little
sirens
to learn
to behave
properly
with
the
enamored
sailors.
Air in the Stone
On the naked cliff
and in the hair
air
of rock and wave.
All changing skin hour by hour.
The salt becomes brine-soaked light,
the sea opens
its clouds,
and the sky
hurls green foam.
The brilliant day
is like a flower
driven into
a golden lance.
All
is
bell, cup,
emptiness, raising
the transparent heart
of stone
and
water.
To a Wrinkled Boulder
A wrinkled stone
polished
by sea, by air,
by time.
A giant rock, shaken
by a cyclone, by a volcano,
by a night
of seafoam and black guitars.
Only a
royal
stone
in the middle
of time and earth,
triumph
of immovability, of harshness,
majestic like the stars
facing
all
that stirs,
alone
profound, dense and pure.
Oh solitary statue
rising
from the sand!
Oh naked bulk
where ash-colored
lizards climb,
that drink
a goblet
of dew
in the dawn,
stone
against seafoam,
against changing sky,
against spring.
Infinite stone erected by
the pure hands of solitude
in the middle of the sand!
The Stones and the Birds
Birds of the South Sea,
resting,
it is the hour
of great solitude, the hour of stone.
I knew every nest,
the unsociable lodging
of the nomadic,
I loved your Antarctic flight,
the somber accuracy of the remote birds.
Now, rest
in the amphitheater
of the islands:
no longer can I
talk with you,
there are no
letters, there is no
telegraph
between poet and bird:
there is secret music,
only hidden wings,
plumage and power.
How much distance and greed
awaited the cruel gold eyes
of the silver fugitive!
With closed wings
a meteor descended,
exploding in your seafoam light,
and the flight again ascended,
climbing to the heights with a bloody fish.
From the Chilean Archipelago,
there, where rain
established its home,
great black wings
came cutting the sky,
and dominating
the territories and distances
of winter,
here on the continent
of solitary stone,
love, manure, life,
all that is left,
adventurous birds
of stone, sea and impossible sky.
To the Traveler
These stones aren’t sad.
Within them lives gold,
they have the seeds of planets,
they have bells in their depths,
gloves of iron, marriages
of time with the amethysts:
on the inside laughing with rubies,
nourishing themselves from lightning.
Because of this, traveler, pay attention
to the hardships of the road,
to mysteries on the walls.
I know this at great cost,
that all life is not outward
nor all death within,
and that the age writes letters
with water and stone for no one,
so that no one knows,
so that no one understands anything.
The Tender Bulk
Don’t be frightened by the relentless face
that earthquakes and bad weather
have carved, sea grasses,
small plants the color of a
star
raised by the stubborn neck
of the defiant mountain.
The impulse, the ecstasy, the anger,
stayed within the stone,
and when the form exploded
into the planets,
earthly plants flowered
in its wrinkles of granite
and a tenderness remained.
Bird
The bird, bird, bird:
bird, flying, bird,
escape to your nest, climb to the sky,
peck the clouds of water,
cross the full moon,
the brilliant sun and the distances
with your plumage of basalt
and your abdomen of stone feathers.
Stones for Maria
The pure pebbles,
oval olives,
were once
inhabitants
of the ocean’s
vines,
clusters
of grapes
in submerged honeycombs:
The waves picked them,
felled by wind,
rolling in the abyss
among slow-moving fish
and sleepwalking jellyfish,
tails of lacerated sharks,
eels like bullets!
Transparent stones,
smooth stones,
pebbles,
sliding toward
the bottom of humid regions,
far below, near where
the sky reemerges
and the sea dies above its artichokes.
Rolling and rolling
among the fingers and lips underwater
dow
n to the smooth interminable,
until they were only touch,
curve of the smooth cup,
petal of the hip.
Then the surf grew stronger
and a beat of hard wave,
a hand of stone
winnowed cobbles
sifted them along the coast
and then disappeared in silence:
small amber teeth,
raisins of honey and salt, beans of water,
blue olives of the wave,
forgotten almonds in the sand.
Stones for Maria!
Stones of honor for her labyrinth!
She, like a spider
of transparent stone,
will weave her embroidery,
make her banner of pure stone,
fabricate, with silvery stones,
the structure of the day;
with sulfurous stones,
the root of a lost lightning flash,
and one by one will climb to her wall,
to the pattern, to the honesty, to the motion,
the fugitive stone,
the grape of the sea has returned to the clusters
wearing the light of her seafoam full of wonder.
Stones for Maria!
Wrinkled agates of Isla Negra,
sulfurous stones
of Tocopilla, like shattered stars,
decending from hellish mineral,
stones of La Serenta that the ocean
smoothed and then settled in the heights,
and from Coquimbo the black power,
the rolling basalt
of Maitencillo, of Tolten, of Niebla,
the wet dress
of the Chiloe seashore,
round stones, stones like eggs
of southern birds, translucent fingers
of the secret salt, of frozen
quartz, or enduring heritage
of the Andes, boats
and monasteries
of granite.
Praise
the stones
of Maria,
those that she arranged like a crystal bee
in the honeycomb of her wisdom:
the stones
of its walls,
of the book that is built
letter by letter,
leaf by leaf,
and stone by stone!
It is necessary to see and read this beauty
and I love its hands
from whose power
appears, gently,
a
lesson
of stone.
Antarctic Stones
There all ends
and doesn’t end:
there all begins:
rivers and ice part,
air is married to snow,
there are no streets or horses
and the only building
stone built.
No one inhabits the castle
not even the lost souls
that the cold and frigid wind
frightened:
the solitude of the world alone is there
and so the stone
became music,
lifting its slender heights,
raising itself to cry or sing
but it remained silent.
Only the wind, the whip
Isla Negra (White Pine Poetry Prize) Page 3
