Spain in Our Hearts Read online

  no hay pan ni luz: un cristal frío cae

  sobre secos geranios. De noche sueños negros

  abiertos por obuses, como sangrientos bueyes:

  nadie en el alba de las fortificaciones,

  sino un carro quebrado: ya musgo, ya silencio de edades

  en vez de golondrinas en las casas quemadas,

  desangradas, vacías, con puertas hacia el cielo:

  ya comienza el mercado a abrir sus pobres esmeraldas,

  y las naranjas, el pescado,

  cada día traídos a través de la sangre,

  se ofrecen a las manos de la hermana y la viuda.

  Ciudad de luto, socavada, herida,

  rota, golpeada, agujereada, llena

  de sangre y vidrios rotos, ciudad sin noche, toda

  noche y silencio y estampido y héroes,

  ahora un nuevo invierno más desnudo y más solo,

  ahora sin harina, sin pasos, con tu luna

  de soldados.

  A todo, a todos.

  Sol pobre, sangre nuestra

  perdida, corazón terrible

  sacudido y llorando. Lágrimas como pesadas balas

  han caído en tu oscura tierra haciendo sonido

  de palomas que caen, mano que cierra

  la muerte para siempre, sangre de cada dia

  y cada noche y cada semana y cada

  mes. Sin hablar de vosotros, héroes dormidos

  y despiertos, sin hablar de vosotros que hacéis temblar el agua

  y la tierra con vuestra voluntad insigne,

  en esta hora escucho el tiempo en una calle,

  alguien me habla, el invierno

  llega de nuevo a los hoteles

  en que he vivido,

  todo es ciudad lo que escucho y distancia

  rodeada por el fuego como por una espuma

  de víboras, asaltada por una

  agua de infierno.

  Hace ya más de un año

  que los enmascarados tocan tu humana orilla

  y mueren al cantacto de tu eléctrica sangre:

  sacos de moros, sacos de traidores,

  han rodado a tus pies de piedra: ni el humo ni la muerte

  han conquistado tus muros ardiendo.

  Entonces,

  qué hay, entonces? Si, son los del exterminio,

  son los devoradores: te acechan, ciudad blanca,

  el obispo de turbio testuz, los señoritos

  fecales y feudales, el general en cuya mano

  suenan treinta dineros: están contra tus muros

  un cinturón de lluviosas beatas,

  un escuadrón de embajadores pútridos

  y un triste hipo de perros militares.

  Loor a ti, loor en nube, en rayo,

  en salud, en espadas,

  frente sangrante cuyo hilo de sangre

  reverbera en las piedras malheridas,

  deslizamiento de dulzura dura,

  clara cuna en relámpagos armada,

  material ciudadela, aire de sangre

  del que nacen abejas.

  Hoy tú que vives, Juan,

  hoy tú que miras, Pedro, concibes, duermes, comes:

  hoy en la noche sin luz vigilando sin sueño y sin reposo,

  solos en el cemento, por la tierra cortada,

  desde los enlutados alambres, al Sur, en medio, en torno,

  sin cielo, sin misterio,

  hombres como un collar de cordones defienden

  la ciudad rodeada por las llamas: Madrid endurecida

  por golpe astral, par conmoción del fuego:

  tierra y vigilia en el alto silencio

  de la victoria: sacudida

  como una rosa rota: rodeada

  de laurel infinito!

  MADRID (1937)

  At this hour I remember everything and everyone,

  vigorously, sunkenly in

  the regions that—sound and feather—

  striking a little, exist

  beyond the earth, but on the earth. Today

  a new winter begins.

  There is in that city,

  where lies what I love,

  there is no bread, no light: a cold windowpane falls

  upon dry geraniums. By night black dreams

  opened by howitzers, like bloody oxen:

  no one in the dawn of the ramparts

  but a broken cart: now moss, now silence of ages,

  instead of swallows, on the burned houses,

  drained of blood, empty, their doors open to the sky:

  now the market begins to open its poor emeralds,

  and the oranges, the fish,

  brought each day across the blood,

  offer themselves to the hands of the sister and the widow.

  City of mourning, undermined, wounded,

  broken, beaten, bullet-riddled, covered

  with blood and broken glass, city without night, all

  night and silence and explosions and heroes,

  now a new winter more naked and more alone,

  now without flour, without steps, with your moon

  of soldiers.

  Everything, everyone.

  Poor sun, our lost

  blood, terrible heart

  shaken and mourned. Tears like heavy bullets

  have fallen on your dark earth sounding

  like falling doves, a hand that death

  closes forever, blood of each day

  and each night and each week and each

  month. Without speaking of you, heroes asleep

  and awake, without speaking of you who make the water and the earth

  tremble with your glorious purpose,

  at this hour I listen to the weather on a street,

  someone speaks to me, winter

  comes again to the hotels

  where I have lived,

  everything is city that I listen to and distance

  surrounded by fire as if by a spume

  of vipers assaulted by a

  water of hell.

  For more than a year now

  the masked ones have been touching your human shore

  and dying at the contact of your electric blood:

  sacks of Moors, sacks of traitors

  have rolled at your feet of stone: neither smoke nor death

  have conquered your burning walls.

  Then,

  what’s happening, then? Yes, they are the exterminators,

  they are the devourers: they spy on you, white city,

  the bishop of turbid scruff, the fecal and feudal

  young masters, the general in whose hand

  jingle thirty coins: against your walls are

  a circle of women, dripping and devout,

  a squadron of putrid ambassadors,

  and a sad vomit of military dogs.

  Praise to you, praise in cloud in sunray,

  in health, in swords,

  bleeding front whose thread of blood

  echoes on the deeply wounded stones,

  a slipping away of harsh sweetness,

  bright cradle armed with lightning,

  fortress substance, air of blood

  from which bees are born.

  Today you who live, Juan,

  today you who watch, Pedro, who conceive, sleep, eat:

  today in the lightless night on guard without sleep and without rest,

  alone on the cement, across the gashed earth,

  from the blackened wire, to the South, in the middle, all around,

  without sky, without mystery,

  men like a collar of cordons defend

  the city surrounded by flames: Madrid hardened

  by an astral blow, by the shock of fire:

  earth and vigil in the deep silence

  of victory: shaken

  like a broken rose, surrounded

  by infinite laurel!

  ODA SOLAR AL EJERCITO DEL PUEBLO

  Armas del pueblo! Aquí! La amenaza, el asedio

  aún derraman
la tierra mezclándola de muerte,

  áspera de aguijones!

  Salud, salud,

  salud te dicen las madres del mundo,

  las escuelas te dicen salud, los viejos carpinteros,

  Ejército del Pueblo, te dicen salud, con las espigas,

  la leche, las patatas, el limón, el laurel,

  todo lo que es de la tierra y de la boca

  del hombre.

  Todo, como un collar

  de manos, como una

  cintura palpitante, como una obstinación de relámpagos,

  todo a ti se prepara, todo hacia ti converge!

  Día de hierro,

  azul fortificado!

  Hermanos, adelante,

  adelante por las tierras aradas,

  adelante en la noche seca y sin sueño, delirante y raída,

  adelante entre vides, pisando el color frío de las rocas,

  salud, salud, seguid. Más cortantes que la voz del invierno,

  más sensibles que el párpado, más seguros que la punta del trueno,

  puntuales como el rápido diamante, nuevamente marciales,

  guerreros según el agua acerada de las tierras del centro,

  según la flor y el vino, según el corazón espiral de la tierra,

  según las raíces de todas las hojas, de todas las mercaderías firagantes de la tierra.

  Salud, soldados, salud, barbechos rojos,

  salud, tréboles duros, salud, pueblos parados

  en la luz del relámpago, salud, salud, salud,

  adelante, adelante, adelante, adelante,

  sobre las minas, sobre los cementerios, frente al abominable

  apetito de muerte, frente al erizado

  terror de los traidores,

  pueblo, pueblo eficaz, corazón y fusiles,

  corazón y fusiles, adelante.

  Fotógrafos, mineros, ferroviarios, hermanos

  del carbón y la piedra, parientes del martillo,

  bosque, fiesta de alegres disparos, adelante,

  guerrilleros, mayores, sargentos, comisarios políticos,

  aviadores del pueblo, combatientes nocturnos,

  combatientes marinos, adelante:

  frente a vosotros

  no hay más que una mortal cadena, un agujero

  de podridos pescados: adelante!

  no hay allí sino muertos moribundos,

  pantanos de terrible pus sangrienta,

  no hay enemigos; adelante, España,

  adelante, campanas populares,

  adelante, regiones de manzana,

  adelante, estandartes cereales,

  adelante, mayúsculos del fuego,

  porque en la lucha, en la ola, en la pradera,

  en la montaña, en el crepusculo cargado de acre aroma,

  lleváis un nacimiento de permanencia, un hilo

  de difícil dureza.

  Mientras tanto,

  raíz y guirnalda suben del silencio

  para esperar la mineral victoria:

  cada instrumento, cada rueda roja,

  cada mango de sierra o penacho de arado,

  cada extracción del suelo, cada temblor de sangre

  quiere seguir tus pasos, Ejército del Pueblo:

  tu luz organizada llega a los pobres hombres

  olvidados, tu definida estrella

  clava sus roncos rayos en la muerte

  y establece los nuevos ojos de la esperanza.

  SOLAR ODE TO THE ARMY OF THE PEOPLE

  Arms of the people! Here! The threat, the siege

  are still wasting the earth, mixing it with death,

  earth rough with goading!

  Your health,

  your health say the mothers of the world,

  the schools say your health, the old carpenters,

  Army of the People, they say health to you with blossoms,

  milk, potatoes, lemon, laurel,

  everything that belongs to the earth and to the mouth

  of man.

  Everything, like a necklace

  of hands, like a

  throbbing waist, like a persistence of thunderbolts,

  everything prepares itself for you, converges on you!

  Day of iron,

  fortified blue!

  Brothers, onward,

  onward through the ploughed lands,

  onward in the dry and sleepless night, delirious and threadbare,

  onward among the vines, treading the cold color of the rocks,

  good health to you, go on. More cutting than winter’s voice,

  more sensitive than the eyelid, more unfailing than the tip of the thunderbolt,

  exact as the swift diamond, warlike anew,

  warriors according to the biting waters of the central lands,

  according to the flower and the wine, according to the spiral heart of the earth,

  according to the roots of all the leaves, of all the fragrant produce of the earth.

  Your health, soldiers, your health, red fallow lands,

  health, hard clovers, health, towns stopped

  in the light of the lightning, your good health,

  onward, onward, onward, onward,

  over the mines, over the cemeteries, facing the abominable

  appetite of death, facing the bristling

  terror of the traitors,

  people, effective people, hearts and guns,

  hearts and guns, onward.

  Photographers, miners, railroadmen, brothers

  of coal and stone, relatives of the hammer,

  woods, festival of gay nonsense, onward,

  guerrilla fighters, chiefs, sergeants, political commissars,

  people’s aviators, night fighters,

  sea fighters, onward:

  facing you

  there is only a mortal chain, a hole

  of rotten fish: onward!

  there are only dying dead there,

  swamps of terrible bloody pus,

  there are no enemies; onward, Spain,

  onward, people’s bells,

  onward, apple orchards,

  onward, banners of the grain,

  onward, giants of the fire,

  because in the struggle, in the wave, in the meadow,

  in the mountain, in the twilight laden with acrid smell,

  you bear a lineage of permanence, a thread

  of hard harshness.

  Meanwhile,

  root and garland rise from the silence

  to await the mineral victory:

  each instrument, each red wheel,

  each mountain mango or plume of plough,

  each product of the soil, each tremor of blood

  wants to follow your steps, Army of the People:

  your ordered light reaches poor forgotten

  men, your sharp star

  sinks its raucous rays into death

  and establishes the new eyes of hope.

  ALSO FROM NEW DIRECTIONS IN

  BILINGUAL

  SPANISH - ENGLISH EDITIONS

  Pablo Neruda

  RESIDENCE ON EARTH

  Residencia en la tierra

  Translated by Donald D. Walsh,

  with a new Introduction by Jim Harrison

  “Residence on Earth is one of those very rare poems you must drown in. You don’t understand it in discursive terms, you experience it…. Neruda haunts our bodies on an actual earth with the same power that Rilke haunts the more solitary aspects of our minds.”

  —Jim Harrison, from the Introduction

  Residence on Earth (Residencia en la tierra) is widely regarded as Pablo Neruda’s most influential work, a tempestuous ocean that became “a revolution…a classic by which masterpieces are judged” (Review). “In Residence on Earth,” wrote Amado Alonso, “the tornado of fury will no longer pass without lingering, because it will be identified with Neruda’s heart.”

  Written in the span of two decades (1925-1945), beginning when Neruda was twenty-one, Residence on Earth was originally pu
blished in Spanish in three successive volumes (1933, 1935, 1947). Most of these poems were penned when Neruda was a self-exiled diplomat in isolated regions of South Asia.

  ISBN 0-8112-1581-4

  Pablo Neruda

  THE CAPTAIN’S VERSES

  Los versos del Capitán

  Translated by Donald D. Walsh

  Matilde and I took refuge in our love….It was the first time we had lived together in the same house. In that place of intoxicating beauty, our love grew steadily. We could never again live apart. There I finished The Captain’s Verses, a book of love, passionate but also painful…. My love for Matilde, homesickness for Chile, passion for social consciousness fill the pages of this book that went through many editions without its author’s name.

  —Pablo Neruda

  Pablo Neruda finished writing The Captain’s Verses (Los versos del Capitán) in 1952 while in exile on the island of Capri—the paradisal setting of the blockbuster film, II postino (The Postman) that centers around this period of Neruda’s life. Surrounded by the sea, sun, and the natural splendor of a thousand orchards and vineyards, Neruda addressed these poems of love, ecstasy, devotion, and fury to his lover, Matilde Urrutia, the one “with the fire / of an unchained meteor.”

  “It is difficult to find an analogue for the sustained passion and gentleness communicated in this absolutely stunning apotheosis of the poetry of sexual love….Neruda comes closest to the exultation of the Song of Solomon….Matilde Urrutia deserves to enter history in the company of Petrarch’s Laura and Dante’s Beatrice.”

  —Library Journal

  ISBN 0-8112-1580-6

  Nicanor Parra

  ANTIPOEMS

  How to look better and feel great

  Antitranslation by Liz Werner

  “One of the great names in the literature of our language.”

  —Pablo Neruda

  “A poet with all the authority of a master.”

  —Mark Strand, The New York Times Book Review

  “Real seriousness,” Nicanor Parra, the antipoet of Chile, has said, rests in “the comic.” And read in that light, this newest collection of his work is very serious indeed. It is an abundant offering of his signature mocking humor, subverting received conventions and pretensions in both poetry and everyday life, public and private, ingeniously and wittily rendered into English in an excellent antitranslation (the word is Parra’s) by Liz Werner, who has lived and studied in Valparaìso, Chile, where she worked closely with Nicanor Parra in preparing this book.