I'LL TELL YOU MORE
“Escribir es como la segregación de las
resinas”
José Ángel Valente
I've always been wary of language.
Of the frailty it greets me with.
I spend hours snooping around
because of this strange silence.
Language's light is invisible.
I try to retrace the steps leading
me from an equivocal word to its
perception. It doesn't really matter
if I don't make it. Writing a poem
for me only means in every case
the need of a fundamental choice
well narrowed down to the confusion
I show myself through. Portraying
the constancy of a gaze that is
darkness and anxiety. Accustomed
to not understanding what
the dividing lines consist of, I hurry
to make a list of all the things that
unsettle me. I leave behind, however,
too much solid matter that will end
up rotting away. All I do is watch
it and give it a sense of warmth.
That's my only role. Spying on
these hands that know how to put
up main walls in every sentence.
At the very last moment is when
the full meaning comes through.
(Poem translated by D. Sam Abrams)
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