Jaime Luis Huenún

Mari Küla and Mari Meli
February 19, 2020 Huenún Jaime Luis

Mari Küla and Mari Meli
Jaime Huenún Villa
Translated by Cynthia Steele
from Ceremonia de los nombres / Kawiñtun üyelüwün mew / Ceremony of the Names (unpublished)

MARI KÜLA

Manuela Colipe Benavente
breathes in the sun so that she can sleep.
At her feet, nine children sob
in the light of her dreams.
The eagle flies through the air of her eyes,
all the river’s gold resides in her head.
Then the Metrenco, the Huilquilco fly
to her mouth, the mother of waters,
to her hands which gave us food.
Who will say prayers to the earth,
the plum tree, the fig tree, the warm Boldo tree,
who will give roots to the spring,
offer repose to the sky and the trees?
Manuela walks through the fields of Wawanco
drawing sweetness from the meadow flowers,
a Mapuche girl who secretly
possesses the language of dreams.
An invisible girl on the slopes,
in the fire of the mountains and valleys,
a child of the dark left only with
specters for a country and nation.
Go back, then, to the snow, to the barefoot
mountain range of tall cypress groves,
your fire of a red butterfly,
your memory of silence and light.

 

MARI KÜLA

Manuela Colipe Benavente
respira el sol para dormir.
Nueve hijos a sus pies sollozan
en la luz de su soñar.
Vuela el águila en el aire de sus ojos,
todo el oro de los ríos va en la testa.
Vuele entonces el Metrenco, el Allipén,
el Huilío, el verde Quepe , el Huilquilco
a su boca madre de las aguas,
a sus manos que nos dieron de comer.
¿Quién hará oraciones a la tierra,
al ciruelo, a la higuera, al boldo tibio,
quién dará primavera a las raíces
y descanso al cielo y a los árboles?
Va Manuela por los campos de Wawanco
endulzándose entre flores de pradera,
una niña mapuche que posee
en secreto la lengua de los sueños.
Una niña invisible en las vertientes
y en el fuego de los montes y los valles,
una niña de oscuro que ahora tiene
sólo espectros por país y por nación.
Vuelva entonces a la nieve, a la descalza
cordillera de los altos alerzales,
su fulgor de mariposa roja,
su memoria de silencio y luz.

 

MARI MELI

A name is not the one who walks or cries,
nor the one who makes love
or shoos away blowflies
in the grim memory of the dead.
Names don’t travel to the clouds
or to the center of the earth,
Marimán,
they don’t fell the last larch trees
on the blue coastal mountains
of Chaurakawin.
The name falls and degenerates
into lineages made
of dust and gold.
The name kneels down,
ejaculates and reincarnates
into ferocious birds
endlessly eating
the thirsty tongues of destiny.
May the name of condor
they gave you be erased,
the name of wolf, snake,
mountain peaks;
may the grim river of your lineage
be erased,
the poisonous plant,
the bloody moon
sinking into the sea.

 

MARI MELI

No es el nombre el que camina ni el que llora,
ni el que hace el amor
o espanta moscardones
en la torva memoria de los muertos.
Los nombres no viajan a las nubes
o al centro de la tierra,
Marimán,
ni talan los últimos alerces
en los azules montes costinos
de Chaurakawin.
El nombre cae y degenera
en raleas que se hacen
de la pólvora y el oro.
El nombre se prosterna,
eyacula y se reencarna
en pájaros feroces
que comen sin parar
las lenguas sedientas del destino.
Borrado sea el nombre de cóndor que te dieron,
de lobo, de culebra,
de montaña picuda;
borrado sea el río hosco de tu estirpe,
la planta venenosa,
la luna ensangrentada
hundiéndose en el mar.

 

Cynthia Steele is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature at the University of Washington, Seattle. Her translations include Inés Arredondo, Underground Rivers (Nebraska, 1996) and José Emilio Pacheco, City of Memory (City Lights, 2001, with David Lauer). They have also appeared in The Chicago ReviewTriQuarterlyThe Seattle ReviewGulf Coast, Lunch Ticket, Journal of Literary Translation, Natural Bridge, Washington Square Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southern Review, Exchanges, and Latin American Literary Review.

Jaime Luis Huenún, born in Valdivia, Chile in 1967, is an award-winning Mapuche-Huilliche poet whose books include Ceremonias (1999), Puerto Trakl (2008), Reducciones (2012), Fanon City Meu (2018), and La calle Maldestam y otros territorios apócrifos (2016). He has received the Pablo Neruda Prize (2003), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005), and the Prize from the Chilean National Council on Arts and Culture for best work of literature published in 2013. He has also edited anthologies of Mapuche poetry, including Epu mari ülkatufe ta fachantü: 20 poetas mapuche contemporáneos (Lom, 2003). Two of his books are available in English translation: Port Trakl (Diálogos, 2008) and Fanon City Meu (Action Books, 2018). Huenún currently teaches Indigenous poetry at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago and forms part of the team that oversees the “World Literatures” major. Also, he works for the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Patrimony, in charge of the area of Native Peoples of the Metropolitan Region.