Herta Muler: tudo o que eu carrego comigo, um excerto

28/09/2009
Herta Müller's novel "Everything I Own I Carry With Me" - an excerpt

An excerpt:

Everything I have I carry with me.
Or: everything that's mine I carry on me.

I carried everything I had. It wasn't actually mine. It was either intended for a different purpose or somebody else's. The pigskin suitcase was a gramophone box. The dust coat was from my father. The town coat with the velvet neckband from my grandfather. The breeches from my Uncle Edwin. The leather puttees from our neighbour, Herr Carp. The green gloves from my Auntie Fini. Only the claret silk scarf and the toilet bag were mine, gifts from recent Christmases.

The war was still on in January 1945. Shocked that, in the depths of winter, I was to be taken who-knows-where by the Russians, everyone wanted to give me something that would be useful, maybe, even if it didn't help. Because nothing on earth could help. It was irrevocable: I was on the Russians' list, so everyone gave me something - and drew their own conclusions as they did. I took the things and, at the age of seventeen, drew my own conclusion: the timing was right for going away. I could have done without the list being the reason, but if things didn't turn out too badly, it would even be good for me. I wanted away from this thimble of a town, where all the stones had eyes. I wasn't so much afraid as secretly impatient. And I had a bad conscience because the list that caused my relatives such anguish was, for me, tolerable. They feared that in another country something might happen to me. I wanted to go to a place that did not know me.

Something had already happened to me. Something forbidden. It was strange, dirty, shameless, and beautiful. It happened in the park with all the alders, away at the back, beyond the short-grass hills. On the way home, I went to the centre of the park, into the round pavilion where, on public holidays, the orchestras would play. I remained seated for a while. The light pierced the finely-carved wood. I could see the fear of the empty circles, squares, and quadrilaterals - white tendrils with claws linking them. It was the pattern of my aberration, and the pattern of the horror in the face of my mother. In this pavilion I swore to myself: I'm never coming back to this park.

The more I tried to stop myself, the quicker I went back – after two days. To my rendezvous, as it was called in the park.
I went to my second rendezvous with the same first man. He was called THE SWAN. The second man was new, he was called THE FIR. The third was called THE EAR. After that came THE THREAD. Then THE ORIOLE and THE CAP. Later, THE HARE, THE CAT, THE SEAGULL. Then THE PEARL. Only we knew which name was whose. We played at wild animals, I let myself be passed along. And it was summer in the park, and the birches had a white skin, and the green wall of impenetrable foliage was growing among the jasmine and elder bushes.

Love has its seasons. Autumn put an end to the park. The wood became naked. The rendezvous moved with us to the Neptune. Next to the pool's iron gate was its oval sign with the swan. Each week, I met the one who was twice my age. He was Romanian. He was married. I am not saying what his name was, and not what my name was. We arrived separately: the woman at the cash desk, behind the leaded window of her booth, the shiny stone floor, the round central column, the wall tiles with the water-lily pattern, the carved wooden stairs – none of these must realise we'd arranged to meet. We went into the pool and swam with all the others. Only at the saunas did we finally meet.

Back then, shortly before the camp - and as would also be the case from my return until, in 1968, I left the country - any rendezvous would have meant a prison sentence. Five years, at least, if I'd been caught. Many were. After a brutal interrogation, they were taken straight from the park or the municipal baths to the jail. From there, to the prison camp next to the canal. I know now: no-one came back from the canal. Anyone who did was a walking corpse. Had aged, was ruined, was no longer fit for any kind of love.

As for in the camp – I'd have been dead, if caught in the camp.

After the five years in the camp, I strolled daily through the commotion of the streets, rehearsing in my head the best things to say, if arrested. CAUGHT RED-HANDED: against this guilty verdict I prepared a thousand excuses and alibis. I carry silent baggage. I have packed myself into silence so deeply and for so long that I can never unpack myself in words. I just pack myself differently each time I speak.

In the last summer of the rendezvous, to extend my walk home from the park with all the alders, I happened to enter the Church of the Holy Trinity on the main ring road. This coincidence was fate. I saw the times that were coming. On a pillar, next to the side altar, stood the saint in the grey cloak, his collar was the sheep that he carried round his neck. This sheep round his neck is silence itself. There are things you don't speak about. But I know what I am speaking about when I say that silence round your neck is not the same as silence in your mouth. Before, during, and after my time in the camp – for twenty-five years I lived in fear, of the state and of my family. Of a double fall, that the state might lock me up as a criminal, and the family disown me in disgrace. In the crowded streets, the display cases, the windows in trams and houses, the fountains and puddles, for me, became mirrors. I looked at myself, disbelievingly, feared I might be transparent, after all.
My father was an art teacher. And I, with the Neptune in my head, winced as if I'd been kicked if he used the word WATERCOLOUR. The word knew how far I'd gone already. My mother said, at the table: Don't stab the potato with your fork, it will fall apart, use your spoon, you use your fork for the flesh. My temples were pounding. How come she's using the word flesh when it's potatoes and forks we're talking about? What kind of flesh does she mean? My rendezvous had reversed the meanings of flesh for me. I was my own thief, the words came up unexpectedly and caught me.

My mother and especially my father, like all Germans in the town, believed in the beauty of blond plaits and white knee-length socks. In the black rectangle that was Hitler's moustache, and in us Transylvanian Saxons being part of the Aryan race. My secret, viewed purely physically, was the worst abomination. The Romanian involved meant I'd had relations with a non-Aryan, too.

I wanted away from this family, even if it meant going to a camp. I just felt sorry for my mother who couldn't see how little she knew me. Who, when I was away, would think of me more often than I of her.
In the church, beside the saint with the sheep of silence round his neck, I had seen the white alcove with the inscription: HEAVENS SETS TIME IN MOTION. When I packed my case, I knew: the white alcove had worked. This was now time in motion. I was also happy I didn't have to go off into the war, into the snow at the front. With foolish courage, I obediently set about packing. There was nothing I refused to include. Leather puttees with laces, breeches, the coat with the velvet neckband – none of these things suited me. Time in motion was what it was all about, not clothes. Whether with these clothes or others, you become an adult anyway. The world isn't a fancy-dress ball, it's true, I thought, but no-one who, in the depths of winter, has to go to the Russians can possibly look ridiculous.
Two policemen – a Romanian and a Russian - took the list from house to house. That was the patrol. I don't know any more whether, in our house, they uttered the word CAMP. And if they didn't, which other word - apart from RUSSIA - they did utter. If they did, the word camp didn't frighten me. Despite the war, and the silence of my rendezvous round my neck, I was still – at seventeen – enjoying a bright foolish childhood. Words like watercolour and flesh got to me. My brain was deaf to the word CAMP.

That time at the table with the potatoes and the fork, when my mother caught me with the word flesh, I remembered playing as a child down in the courtyard, and my mother shouting from the veranda window: if you don't come up to eat right now, if I have to call you again, you can stay where you are. Because I stayed down another while, when I did come up, she said:
You can pack your satchel now and go out into the world and do what you like. As she said this, she dragged me into the room, took the small rucksack and stuffed my woolly cap and jacket into it. I asked: Where am I supposed to go, though? I'm your child, after all.

Many people think packing is a matter of practice, you learn it automatically, like singing or praying. We had no practice, and no suitcase, either. When my father had to go to the front, to join the Romanian army, there was nothing to pack. As a soldier you're given everything, it's part of the uniform. Apart from for travelling away, and against the cold, we didn't know what we were packing for. You don't have the right things, so you improvise. The wrong things become what's needed. What's needed is then the only thing that's right, but only because you have it.

My mother brought the gramophone from the living-room and put it on the kitchen table. Using the screwdriver, I made a suitcase from the gramophone box. The rotary mechanism and the turntable I removed first. Then I filled the hole where the crank handle had been with a cork. The velvet lining remained where it was, red as a fox. Nor did I remove the triangular plaque with the dog beside the horn and HIS MASTER'S VOICE. At the bottom of the case I placed four books: Faust, a cloth-bound edition, Zarathustra, the slim volume by Weinheber, and the eight-centuries-of-poetry anthology. No novels, because novels you read just once, then never again. My toilet bag went on top of the books. In it were: 1 flacon of toilet water, 1 flacon of TARR aftershave, 1 shaving soap, 1 hand razor, 1 shaving brush, 1 styptic pencil, 1 piece of hand-soap, 1 pair of nail-scissors. Beside the toilet bag I placed: 1 pair of woollen socks (brown, already darned), 1 pair of knee-length socks, 1 red-and-white checked flannel shirt, 2 pairs of ribbed underpants. At the very top, to prevent it being squashed, came my new silk scarf. It was self-coloured – claret - but checked, shiny here, dull there. With that, the case was full.

And then my bundle: 1 bedspread from the divan (woollen, a bright-blue and beige check, gigantic – but it didn't keep you warm). And rolled into it: 1 dust coat (a pepper-and-salt check, already very worn) and 1 pair of leather puttees (ancient, from the first World War, melon-yellow, and with straps).

Then my haversack with: 1 tin of ham, Scandia was the make, 4 slices of buttered bread, a few left-over cookies from Christmas, 1 canteen of water with a beaker.

My grandmother then put the gramophone suitcase, the bundle, and the haversack near the door. The two policemen had said they would come at midnight, that was when they'd fetch me. My luggage was ready by the door.

Next, I put on: 1 pair of long underpants, 1 flannel shirt (a beige-and-green, check), 1 waistcoat with knitted sleeves, 1 pair of woollen socks, and 1 pair of bocanci. The green gloves from Auntie Fini lay on the table, at the ready. I tied the laces on the bocanci and suddenly remembered that years ago, on holiday up on the Wench, my mother had worn a sailor suit she'd made. In the middle of a walk in the countryside, she'd let herself fall in the long grass and pretended to be dead. I was eight at the time. The fright of the sky falling down into the grass. I closed my eyes in order not to see it swallowing me. My mother jumped up, shook me, and said: Do you like me? As you see, I'm still alive.

The laces on the bocanci were tied now. I sat down at the table and waited for midnight. And midnight came, but the patrol was late. Three hours were to pass - which was almost intolerable. Then they were there. My mother held the coat with the velvet neckband up for me. I slipped my arms in. She was crying. I put on the green gloves. In the wooden passageway – right where the gas-meter is – my grandmother said: I KNOW YOU'LL RETURN.

I didn't mean to remember this sentence. I took it with me into the camp, without thinking. I had no idea it was accompanying me. But a sentence like that is independent. It worked in me, more than all the books I took with me. I KNOW YOU'LL RETURN became my heart-shaped shovel's accomplice, and the angel of hunger's adversary. Because I did return, I have the right to say: a sentence like that keeps you alive.

It was 3am in the night of 14-15 January 1945 when the patrol came to fetch me. It was getting colder, -15º C. We drove in a lorry with a tarpaulin hood through the empty town to the exhibition hall. It was the Saxons' festival hall. And now the collective camp. Almost 300 people were squeezed into the hall. On the floor were mattresses and straw palliasses. Cars arrived all through the night, from the surrounding villages too, unloading people who'd been rounded up. By morning, there were almost 500. Counting was a waste of time that night, no overview was possible. In the exhibition hall, the lights burned all night. People were running round, looking for people they knew. They told each other that joiners were being commandeered at the railway station, they were nailing plank beds, made of new wood, into livestock wagons. That other workmen were installing iron stoves in trains. And that others were sawing toilet holes out in the floor. Eyes were opened wide as people spoke, quietly and a lot; and closed as they cried, quietly and a lot. The air smelled of old wool, of the sweat of fear, of a fatty roast, vanilla biscuits and schnapps. A woman removed her scarf. She lived in a village, for sure: her hair was in a double bun at the back of her head, held in place at the centre by a semicircular comb. The teeth of the horn comb disappeared in her hair. Of its curved edge, two corners showed only, like tiny pointed ears. With these ears and the fat bun of hair, the back of the woman's head resembled a sitting cat. I sat like a spectator among upright legs and piles of luggage. For a few minutes, sleep numbed me and I dreamt:

My mother and I are in the cemetery, standing at a new grave. In the middle of it, a furry-leaved plant, half the height of me, is growing. On the stalk is a capsule with a leather handle, a small suitcase. The capsule is open, the breadth of a finger, is lined in fox-red velvet. We don't know who has died. My mother says: Take the chalk from your coat pocket. I don't have any, I say. When I reach into the pocket, there is a piece of tailor's chalk. My mother says: We have to write a short name on the case. Let's write RUTH, no-one we know is called that. I write RUHT, as in here lies.

It was clear to me in my dream that I had died, but I didn't want to tell my mother that yet. I started when an elderly man with an umbrella sat down on the palliasse beside me, came close to my ear and said: My brother-in-law wants to come too, but the hall is guarded on all sides. They're not letting him. We've not left town yet, and he can't come here and I can't go home. On each silver button on his jacket a bird was flying, a wild duck or, more likely, an albatross. I say that because the cross on the decoration on his chest, when I leaned further forward, became an anchor. The umbrella stood like a walking stick between me and him. I asked: Are you taking that with you? Sure it snows there even more than here, he said.

We were not told when, and how, we would have to go to the station from the hall. Would be allowed to go, as I saw it, because I wanted to leave – at long last – and even if it was in the livestock wagon, with a gramophone box and a velvet neckband, and to go to the Russians. I no longer know how we got to the station. The livestock wagons were high. I have forgotten the boarding procedure, too, as we spent such long days and nights travelling in that wagon, it was as if we'd always been in it. I no longer know, either, how long we travelled. I thought travelling for a long time meant getting far away. As long as we're travelling, nothing can happen to us. All is well, as long as we're travelling.

Men and women, young and old, with their luggage at the head of their plank. Speaking and not speaking, eating and sleeping. Bottles of schnapps were passed round. Here and there, once the travelling was something we were already used to, attempts at cuddling started. You looked with one eye, and, with the other, looked away.


*

Translation: Donal McLaughlin
Copyright Carl Hanser Verlag
About this book

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Um poema de Fabrício Estrada

No, ni en nosotros, ni en nadie: la traición no es un punto a negociar
Consigna de los vientos

Nada en el mundo
pudo enseñarnos mejor
que la amarga intuición de la herida.

Así es como aprendimos
a saber de la justicia antes que de la ley,
del mar extendido
antes que del río manso que socava nuestras casas.

Preferimos por lo tanto
abrazarnos a las olas
y señalar de frente a los asesinos.

No somos los hambrientos
que se rompen los dientes
con el pan duro de la filantropía,
ni los sedientos
que se atragantan
con la empozada saliva de los discursos.

Hemos llevado las espigas
a las tierras donde todo alimento se multiplica
y donde sobran manos para esculpir la cosecha.
No llegamos hasta las cumbres
para caer de pronto
llenos del vértigo de los cobardes;
no somos quiénes,
no.

A un paso del camino se yergue
el destino que nuestra propia sombra ha señalado.
Como enjambre de nubes, llegamos
al punto
donde todos los inviernos
revientan
en un millón de pájaros
insurrectos.

Bitácora del Párvulo: Horrores del parto

Bitácora del Párvulo: Horrores del parto

Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Inhotim

http://www.inhotim.org.br/

http://inhotim.blogspot.com/

Inhotim anda tendo sempre várias chamadas no New York Times. Confiram lá no blog.

Gangues do Rio por John Lee Anderson

As belezes e horrores do Rio na New Yorker nas lindas fotos de João Pina:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/10/05/091005_audioslideshow_riogangster

Gerardo em Trânsito: Deus e o Diabo na Terra da Disneyworld

Por: Lúcio Emílio do Espírito Santo Júnior

O livro de contos El Guionista de Díos o del Diablo (o Roteirista de Deus e do Diabo, Walter G. Greulach, 2008, Buenos Aires, Editora Arte e Parte, ainda inédito no Brasil), inicialmente pareceu-me a obra de um jornalista com talento literário que pinçava fatos variados (os famosos fait-divers) nos jornais e transformava-os em literatura de estilo elegante, que brilha como pedra lapidada, mas fragmentários e sem unidade. Ele parecia sonhar com a totalidade e a causalidade, mas no fundo sabê-las impossíveis, daí ficar recolhendo short cuts em jornais para ficcionalizá-las, transformando-as em seus contos.
No entanto, qual não foi minha surpresa: o texto responde justamente a esse tipo de pensamento as respeito dele: “Já relaxado voltei a analisar minha situação. Preocupava-me o tema [dos contos] fossem más histórias copiadas dos jornais. Este agir plagiando inconscientemente poderia ser minha perdição” (GREULACH, 2008, p. 114). Mais adiante, ele reflete de forma surpreendente sobre seu próprio estilo: “Que maníaco de merda – me insulto –por que tenho sempre de colocar um final impossível?” (GREULACH, 2008, p. 115).
Em O Roteirista, a narrativa desarticula a língua jornalística para, a partir dela, gerar uma signância, ou seja, um campo múltiplo de sentido que o leitor pode obter a partir de uma cadeia aparentemente fixa de significantes. A produtividade textual joga com o geno-texto e o feno-texto no sentido utilizado por Kristeva: faz uma articulação entre a estrutura aparente dos contos (que são organizados verticalmente de acordo com o local onde se passam: Argentina/Aruba/Estados Unidos), sempre no plano do enunciado concreto, do discurso manifesto. Essa estrutura organiza-se verticalmente num eixo metonímico, enquanto a outra estrutura organiza-se horizontalmente, num eixo sintagmático (Um prêmio inesperado/A musa perdida/ O Roteirista de Deus e do Diabo/ A casa nas Montanhas).
As narrativas de Greulach apresentam um desejo profundo da causalidade: de que tudo que passamos nesse mundo possua uma razão e não seja absurdo. No entanto, não é assim como o mundo se nos apresenta; sempre trabalhando com reviravoltas do destino, os personagens receberem o resultado de suas ações, mesmo que muito tempo depois: assim acontece com o os protagonistas dos contos, sejam eles Luís Gómez, Jaime Zucarelli, dentre outros, sempre o protagonista está prestando contas ao destino. Assim, de forma trágica e impressionante, surge como paradigmática a relação entre o admirador e o ídolo no conto Cortina de Ferro. A reflexão que abre esse conto serve de motivo-guia para o livro, um leit-motiv que muitas vezes se repete:

Existem histórias em nossa vida que queremos borrar para sempre. Criamos então uma cortina de ferro e por anos não deixamos filtrar-se no presente nenhuma dessas lembranças. Mas tenha por seguro, leitor, que em algum momento antes do fim de seus dias, algo tão simples como uma imagem, um cheiro ou um som, moverá o interruptor. E baixará a cortina e então cairão sobre você – como finas facas afiadas – aquelas velhas sensações que acreditava desterradas de sua mente (GREULACH, 2008, p. 87).

O mais claro exemplo está no próprio conto Cortina de Ferro, em que o personagem principal, tratado na infância como esquizofrênico delirante por identificar-se em demasiado com um personagem de uma série televisiva, o detetive Suárez, reencontra, na maturidade, o seu ídolo, agora decadente:

Me dei conta de que era “meu herói” que viam meus olhos. Só sobravam os despojos daquele que um dia havia comovido minha existência (...). Ele tartamudeava e com frases desconexas (...) uma e outra vez as mesmas histórias. Para minha surpresa, já conhecia as anedotas de memória. Seria por acaso que começava a deslizar-se a cortina de metal? (GREULACH, 2009, p. 89).

O deslocamento, o trânsito é sempre recorrente: da Argentina, o cenário desloca-se para Aruba e daí para os Estados Unidos. Mas é somente em O Tronco Voador de América, que é quando a narrativa se situa totalmente na América do Norte, que a personagem América morre; a América está morta. Assim, em Um Prêmio Inesperado, ao narrar a tragédia de um personagem, narra-se também que o sonho americano virou cenário de pesadelo:

Steven gastou sua infância e sua adolescência pelas ruas de Liberty City, um dos bairros mais marginais do sudeste dos Estados Unidos. Um sistema econômico exclui deliberadamente esse setor da população. Segrega-o, suprindo-o das necessidades mínimas para que não saia desses bolsões de miséria. Escolas de nível F, medicação, vivendas populares, fichas para obter comida e liberdade para que fumem marijuana e usem crack, desde que não saiam de seus guetos. Todo esse contexto vai criando em estes lugares uma cultura do conformismo, da simples sobrevivência. Neste ambiente, a máxima aspiração de um jovem é conseguir uma boa esquina onde viver droga e chegar algum dia a ser um traficante respeitável (GREULACH, 2008, p. 101).

Outro elemento que chama a atenção é que A prosa de O Roteirista de Deus e do Diabo possui traços em comum com a do brasileiro Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes (Três Mulheres de Três PPPs), ou seja: uma preferência recorrente de rever episódios amorosos sob uma nova luz, virando de cabeça para baixo as certezas anteriores do narrador.
Existe, também em comum com Paulo Emílio, um contraste agudo entre a prosa elegante em que o texto é escrito e as atitudes extravagantes dos personagens que assumem a primeira pessoa, tal como a postura complacente que o protagonista do conto O Padre e o Jardineiro assume diante das loucuras de seu amigo:

Tito sofria de esquizofrenia bipolar, enfermidade que se havia manifestado nos últimos meses. Sempre de noite, se transformava em uma pessoa totalmente diferente. Era como se um espírito endemoniado se apoderasse dele. Havia feito o possível para que ninguém soubesse de seu mal noturno. De dia era completamente normal. Muitas noites, Félix esperava que dormisse, entrava na casa e escondia as chaves. As guardava novamente em seu lugar minutos antes de que amanhecesse, mas algumas vezes escapava de sua férrea custódia e começava um verdadeiro pesadelo (GREULACH, 2008, P. 79).

Assim, pode-se dizer que essa narrativa trabalha mais além do que praticando do que praticar simplesmente a metalinguagem falando, por exemplo, de outros textos do livro de contos no conto que traz o nome do livro e, de certa forma, é mais do que um conto-chave,é um conto-pai que traz consigo o genótipo, quase que o nome-do-pai para os demais contos. O nome-do-pai: Geraldo, Gerardo. Ao final do livro, como se fosse um epitáfio, dialogando com todos os contos, está o poema Sem Retorno, assinado pelo, ainda assim, pelo pseudônimo Gerard Walt:

Litanias de oportunidades perdidas, imagens que como flashes
Querem iluminar uma mente já indefesa.
Sombras lúgubres que se entrecruzam ondulantes, sinistras e de fundo um grito, como um martelar incessante, destroçando meus ouvidos já sem tímpanos.
Gozo e dor, paixão e desamor, desterro e saudades, tudo misturado no cruel desfile frente a umas estáticas pupilas.
O arrependimento de não ter ido um pouco mais além.
A cômoda covardia que engendra o conformismo.
O que nunca foi sempre por culpa dos outros.
Funda sombra que oprime um peito carente de batidas.
O deslizar-se nu por um tobogã metálico descascado e ao final um tanque com as águas geladas do canto daqueles a quem fizemos dano.
O desejo de me aferrar à lembrança de um beijo, de um sorriso, de um olhar de um menino, de um simples entardecer, ao alcance da mão.
É em vão, minhas articulações não respondem aos débeis impulsos de meu atormentado cérebro. Chega o final, vento gelado me resseca os pés, já não há futuro, o passado está ruindo comigo.
Poderia ter feito melhor.
Se há um Deus, que me dê o castigo merecido... (GREULACH, 2008, p. 13

Um mundo para todos dividido, Roberto Sosa

a entrada
Un mundo para todos dividido - Roberto Sosa - HND- 1971
Las sales enigmáticas

Los generales compran, interpretan y reparten
la palabra y el silencio.

Son rígidos y firmes
como las negras alturas pavorosas.
Sus mansiones
ocupan
dos terceras partes de sangre y una de soledad,
y desde allí, sin hacer movimientos,
gobiernan los hilos
anudados a sensibilísimos mastines
con dentadura de oro y humana apariencia, y combinan,
nadie lo ignora, las sales enigmáticas
de la orden superior mientras se hinchan
sus inaudibles anillos poderosos.

Los generales son dueños y señores
de códigos, vidas y haciendas, y miembros respetados
de la Santa Iglesia Católica, Apostólica y Romana.


El aire que nos queda

Sobre las salas y ventanas sombreadas de abandono.
Sobre la huida de la primavera, ayer mismo ahogada
en un vaso de agua.
Sobre la viejísima melancolía (tejida y destejida largamente)
hija de las grandes traiciones hechas a nuestros padres y abuelos:
estamos solos.

Sobre las sensaciones de vacío bajo los pies.
Sobre los pasadizos inclinados que el miedo
y la duda edifican.

Sobre la tierra de nadie de la historia:
estamos solos,
sin mundo,
desnudo al rojo vivo el barro que nos cubre,
estrecho
en sus dos lados el aire que nos queda todavía.


Los elegidos de la violencia

No es fácil reconocer la alegría
después de contener el llanto mucho tiempo.

El sonido de los balazos
puede encontrar de súbito
el sitio de la intimidad. El cielo aterroriza
con sus cuencas vacías. Los pájaros pueden
alojar la delgadez
de la violencia entre patas y pico.
La guerra fría
tiende su mano azul y mata.

La niñez, aquella de los cuidados cabellos de vidrio,
no la hemos conocido. Nosotros nunca hemos sido niños.
El horror asumió su papel de padre frío. Conocemos su fuerza con lentitud de asfixia. Conocemos su rostro línea por línea,
gesto por gesto,
cólera por cólera. Y aunque desde las colinas admiramos el mar tendido en la maleza, adolescente el blanco oleaje,
nuestra niñez se destrozó ne la trampa
que prepararon nuestros mayores.

Hace ya muchos años
la alegría
se quebró el pie derecho y un hombro,
y posiblemente ya no se levante,
la pobre.

Mirad,
miradla cuidadosamente.