He is here, come down to look for you.
It is the song that calls you back,
a song of joy and suffering
equally: a promise:
that things will be different up there
than they were last time.
You would rather have gone on feeling nothing,
emptiness and silence; the stagnant peace
of the deepest sea, which is easier
than the noise and flesh of the surface.
You are used to these blanched dim corridors,
you are used to the king
who passes you without speaking.
The other one is different
and you almost remember him.
He says he is singing to you
because he loves you,
not as you are now,
so chilled and minimal: moving and still
both, like a white curtain blowing
in the draft from a half-opened window
beside a chair on which nobody sits.
He wants you to be what he calls real.
He wants you to stop light.
He wants to feel himself thickening
like a treetrunk or a haunch
and see blood on his eyelids
when he closes them, and the sun beating.
This love of his is not something
he can do if you aren’t there,
but what you knew suddenly as you left your body
cooling and whitening on the lawn
was that you love him anywhere,
even in this land of no memory,
even in this domain of hunger.
You hold love in your hand, a red seed
you had forgotten you were holding.
He has come almost too far.
He cannot believe without seeing,
and it’s dark here.
Go back, you whisper,
but he wants to be fed again
by you. O handful of gauze, little
bandage, handful of cold
air, it is not through him
you will get your freedom.
Traducción
El ha venido a buscarte y está aquí,
canción que te llama y quiere que vuelvas,
canción de dicha y de pesar
a partes iguales, promesa
hecha canción, promesa
de que todo será, allá arriba, distinto
a la última vez...
Hubieras preferido seguir sintiendo nada,
vacío y silencio; la estancada paz
del mar más hondo,
al ruido y la carne de la superficie,
acostumbrada a estos pasillos pálidos y en sombras,
y al rey que pasa por tu lado
sin pronunciar palabra.
El otro es diferente
y casi lo recuerdas.
Dice que canta para ti
porque te ama,
no como eres ahora,
tan fría y diminuta: móvil
y a la vez quieta, como blanca cortina
o soplo en la corriente
de una ventana a medio abrir
junto a una silla donde nadie se sienta.
Te quiere "real",
un cuerpo opaco,
sentir cómo se espesa
(tronco de árbol o ancas)
y el golpe de la sangre tras los párpados
al cerrarlos
la llamarada solar...
sin tu presencia no podrá sentir
este amor suyo...
Mas la súbita revelación
de tu cuerpo enfriándose en la tierra
fue saber que le amas en cualquier lugar
hasta en este sitio sin memoria,
este reino del hambre.
Como una semilla roja en la mano
que olvidaste que aprietas,
llevas tu amor...
El necesita ver para creer
y está oscuro.
"Atrás, atrás...", le susurras,
pero quiere que vuelvas
a alimentarlo, Eurídice,
puñado de tul, pequeña venda,
soplo de aire frío,
no se llamará Orfeo
tu libertad...
