Álvaro Calfucoy Gutiérrez, translated by the Editors
Aywiñtuwün
1
I’m telling you:
exile falls over me,
over us. I’m unnamed
in Mapudungun and still
another part of me has vanished
from the Castilian mirror.
—Marina Arrate, “Carta a don Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga”
An enormous crash
in the middle of the blooming Spring
explosion and word
cut down in a lost image
glass which, broken, names
like a defect, year after year, child after child
with a voice already silenced among the noise.
Shards that speak
that open before my face, fragment
that I pick up from the endless concrete
among loosened words that I do not hear
falling between my parted hands
between broken phalanges
bloody
fingers
reconstructing a cloudy gaze
beneath the sky of ash that covers me
that conceals me
each piece, each space, of skin, of touch
of my face, of smell, of taste
of my eyes
of my tongue
of the night’s shadows, of buildings, veiled
to silence
in the immensity of this babel and half-light.
I listen
I listen
A name, maybe my name, a name
that sings me to Autumn in the autumns
promises of a coat in the winter
of the word around the fire
of plunging between brooks
of the forest where I sing
and sing and sing,
and listen
¿Iney pingeymi am?
And I repeat myself
I repeat myself
I repeat myself
¿Iney pingeymi am?
1: To see one’s self in one’s shadow, to be reflected
2: What’s your name?
2