Spring 2015
su más secreta flor hasta enterrarla.
Aislado así como el agua sombría
que vive en sus profundos corredores,
corrí de mano en mano, al aislamiento
de cada ser, al odio cuotidiano.
Supe que así vivían, escondiendo
a mitad de los seres, como peces
del más extraño mar, y en las fangosas
inmensidades encontré la muerte.
La muerte abriendo puertas y caminos.
La muerte deslizándose en los muros.
her pecious flower, awaiting burial.
Isolated like the dark waters
that live in deep channels
I ran from this to that seeking seclusion
from every being and quotidian hate.
I knew people lived so,
half hidden from life, like fish
in foreign seas, and in the murky
depths I met with death -death opening doors and pathways;
death slithering in the walls.
[Tr. Stephen Zelnick]
Photo: Bolívar in 1816, during his stay in Haiti
While “El Poeta” is included in Canto
General, Neruda’s grand historical epic of
indignation and celebration works by other means.
In 330 individual poems, Neruda journeys from
archaic nature (“Algunas Bestias”), to the world
of native peoples, to the “Los Conquistadores”
and their magnificence and horror, to the “Los
Libertadores” and their triumphs and noble
failures, to the establishment of the “Las
Oligarqías”, on to the nightmare of his own times
{“Los Muertos de la Plaza”), and up to “La Crónica
de1948” (a stinging review of Latin American
circumstances in ten nations).
“Algunas Bestias.” recalls the jungle world
where he grew up (Confesio que he Vivido, 1974).
These vivid sensations stayed with him life-long
and throughout his travels. His jungle contains
brilliant activity and invites precise observation -the colorful iguana, the soft-eyed Llama, the sudden jaguar, the red-toothed badger, to the god-like
anaconda. It holds tenderness and predation, life-engendering business in the trees, and deadly
meals beneath the pond. The anaconda rules this realm of blood and beauty, a god feared and
admired, and beyond human measure.
Algunas Bestias
Era el crepúsculo de la iguana.
It was the iguana at twilight.
Desde la arcoirisada crestería
From the rainbow-like crest
The Linnet's Wings