FRANCISCO AZUELA

 

FRANCISCO AZUELA

 

Loneliness

 

To the Tarahumara,

indigenous Rrámuris from northern Mexico.

 

Now that the song of the birds is gone

And at night, the storm

Has a pitiful and lonely barking of dogs,

And love has withered.

Loneliness I know you, at last.

 

Goddess of silence and of a hollow branch,

Ere once the birds wove their nests.

 

Great deaths appear to my mind,

Immense characters

And their glorious times.

 

Kings, poets and warriors,

The freedom of the nations has been very high,

Blood has flowed

As much as the rivers that flow into the deep sea.

 

A strange insect has prowled your soul

And you have gone with him

In an act of devotion so similar to an absence.

 

You’ve already forgiven great injustices.

The mutilated men claim

Their right to be heard,

And only you can feel a bitter wind

Breaking your heart in the deserted mountains.

 

Be brave, comrade of the dawn.

It ´s not far the awakening;

You can interpret all the illusions of these people,

This village immersed in the poverty of life;

Make sing again the white blackbird of old solitudes,

Make it be heard the song of the goldfinches

And of the troubadours,

May the world turn it´s face

To be grafted onto the afternoon spike

Where a sun dreaming of hope is setting.

 

Make that dawn chant and so with it your soul.

 

Translation from Spanish by the poet Reynaldo Marcos Padua,

editor, storyteller, and retired teacher.

Doctor Padua is a university professor at the Universty of Puerto Rico, Cayey campus.

 

 

 

Matriarchal Mexico City

 

I

To travel for so many years,

valleys,

mountains,

distant regions,

desired homelands,

shaded sites,

aching,

high,

human

of incense and rosaries,

of war and heroism

of loves cut short

where the wound makes itself

a river of silence.

 

II

To have lived

yesterdays of time,

and covered,

more than o¬nce,

your shelter of homeland,

my Homeland,

I return to you

with a feeling that I had forgotten.

 

III

I return to you

on these avenues of ancient flavors,

of lights and of star.

 

I return to you

drinking memories,

touching tomes

of your maternal Soul.

 

IV

Matriarchal Mexico City

sparrows food,

dreams,

symbols,

illusions,

fountains of life,

spikes of gold.

 

Wisdom of mysteries,

love,

profound.

 

V

Fourteen years without embracing your shadows

forsaken,

without destiny.

 

I return to you,

certain destiny in your roots.

 

    Translated by Ron Hudson.

 

 

Aztecal VIII

 

Dans ce poème des morts,

ton père est mort,

tes ancêtres et ta semence sont morts

et le soir s’est achevé dans un regard.

 

Dans ce poème des morts,

l’amour de tes aînés est mort,

tes oiseaux sont morts

et l’étoile de ton front s’est tue

comme une poignée de roses malades.

 

Dans ce poème des morts,

ta vie est morte

et pour la seconde fois, ta patrie est morte

quand tu es resté à la contempler

comme un arc-en-ciel incolore.

 

Dans ce poème des morts,

ton sang a éclaté en deux rivières bleues

et un squelette d’ombres

dans tes yeux de neige

cherche, envers et contre tout,

la liberté de ton peuple.

 

Translated by Margarita Feliciano.

 

FRANCISCO AZUELA

 

FRANCISCO AZUELA was born on March 8, 1948 in León, Guanajuato. Mexico. Is a writer and poet.