Ennio Moltedo

From Night, by Ennio Moltedo, translated from Spanish by Marguerite Feitlowitz
September 24, 2022 Moltedo Ennio

From Night, by Ennio Moltedo, translated from Spanish by Marguerite Feitlowitz

 

11

Can we go on like this? Wherever one goes, on a walk, to work, to the desert, to the seashore, a hollow, a shelter, anyplace in the shade, there’s a message, a sign at the foot of the column, in official gardens, among trees, even in ponds and underwater currents, in the tunnel, yes, under the bridge, in the office of the district attorney, by all the evidence, from every one of our pores, we are birthing the half-dressed dead.

 

14

Advancing and retreating in a strange movement through the fog, the sea was giving us clues, and then erasing them. Appearing in the fabric of the horizon were rents of unsuspected clarity and shifting shadows, small rips at first, then blots that became forms: caves, animals, constructions hanging by a thread over the water where worlds and messages and fears from another world could only be read and repeated by the waves.

Then the earth pitched down in front of us reaching for the coast which—along with your heart—kept absolute silence.

 

51

Please, no. Not the full weight of the law.

Where do they come from, the flowers that bloom by the wayside and blossom in the constitution—and always face the same direction?

Impossible to resist the white boys’ legislation. Impossible, so much weight and so much paving over. To tell you the truth, I prefer to sit back and wait for the presidential reckoning, the early and definitive iterations, all the usual music on which—they say—the very air, this time of year, depends.

I prefer a carillon concert or the same old movie shown on the clear channel of the fog:

I prefer the story of Hermes the fascist who in ’39 sailed off, amid cheers and applause, to defend the peninsula, and in ’45 was seen returning from the opposite side of the boat, on the arm of the enemy.

But the whole weight of the law, no, not here. The children are sleeping.

Leave something for the moment we pack the truck. For the night of bags and bundles. For our escape. But also for a weekend, in the sun, with the memory of friends. These things are not to be gambled with.

 

66

One more skeleton and I’ll be left talking to myself, buy­ing bones, playing the flute, playing the drums, with bones, pointing the way to fields, plantations, and nurseries, until the day of the harvest and the great exportation of stems and bones.

 

71

Impossible, K, to enter the castle. The castle has no name, no owner, and is always empty. Even so, we must strive for the sky: realm of the scintillating promise: Freedom.

 

11

¿Podemos continuar así? Adonde uno vaya, al paseo, al trabajo, al desierto, a la orilla del mar, una cavidad, una tapa, cualquier lugar en sombra, algún recado, una señal al pie del contrafuerte, en jardines oficiales, entre árboles, desde aguas y corrientes submarinas, en el túnel, sí, bajo el puente, en casa fiscal, a toda prueba, por cada poro nos nacen muertos a medio vestir.

 

 

14

El paseo del mar mostraba apariciones y obsequios en un accionar extraño a través de la bruma. Sobre el paño del horizonte aparecían huecos de claridad insospechada o sombras móviles, pequeños retazos en un comienzo, luego manchas que iban calzando sus formas: grutas, animales, construcciones colgadas de un hilo sabre el agua donde los mensajes y palabras o temores de otro mundo sólo las alas eran capaces de leer y repetir.
Entonces el mundo se asomaba ante nosotros para avanzar hacia la costa que guardaba, aparte de tu corazón, absoluto silencio.

 

 

51

No, por favor. Todo el peso de la ley no.

¿Dónde entran aquí las flores del camino y de la constitución que brotan siempre del mismo lado?

Imposible resistir la legislación de los niños blancos. Imposible tanto peso y adoquín por aquí. De verdad, prefiero esperar sentado la cuenta presidencial, la preparatoria y la definitiva o las cadencias acostumbradas que -dicen­ transmite el aire en este mes del afio.

Prefiero un concierto de campanas o la misma película por el claro canal de la niebla:

Prefiero la historia del fascista Hermes que el 39 partió del puerto, entre vítores, a defender la península y lo vieron entrar el 45 por el lado opuesto de la bota y del brazo del enemigo.

Pero todo el peso de la ley, aquí, no. Los niños duermen. Dejen algo para el momento de cargar el camión. Para la noche de sacos y bultos. Para el escape. Y también para un fin de semana, al sol, con los amigos del recuerdo. No se juega con estas cosas.

 

 

66

Un esqueleto más y quedaré hablando solo, comprando huesos, tocando la flauta, el tambor, con huesos, presentando materiales, plantaciones, viveros, hasta el día de la cosecha y la gran exportaci6n de tallos y huesos.

 

 

71

Imposible, K., acceder al castillo. El castillo no tiene nombre, no tiene dueñ y siempre está vacío. Sin embargo debemos intentar alcanzar las nubes: el remate donde reina el aviso que enciende y apaga su promesa: Libertad.

 

 

**All recordings read by writer Luis Andrés Figueroa

Ennio Moltedo (1931-2012) is a native of the seaport city of Valparaíso. The son of Italian immigrants to Chile, he a poet of the sea, and his connection to ancient Mediterranean poets can be seen, heard, and felt in his poems. He published eight collections of poems, collaborated with visual artists, and was Director of the Universidad de Valparaíso Press. Night, from which the poems here are excerpted, was written during and against the Pinochet dictatorship, but not published until that regime had ended, and is forthcoming from World Poetry Books in November 2022. A revered “poet’s poet,” Moltedo has been compared with Cavafy for his allegiance to a place at once mythic and mundane; with Char, for the inventiveness of his political poems; with Saba for his mastery of extreme concision.