Isla Negra Read online

  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 st
ories

  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

  down 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

  of the South Pole, whistled,

  only the white void

  and a noise of rain birds

  around the castle of solitude.

  Nothing More