Miguel Otero Silva
Translation by Chris Holdaway
A philosopher stopped at my door and said:
“resign yourself to death because it is inevitable”,
as if inevitable were not a word as blind as a rock
against which the inflamed human heart rages,
as if inevitable were not a concept that cuts like a knife
that slaughters our discernment and bleeds our acceptance.
Another philosopher stopped at my door and said:
“resign yourself to death because everyone has to die”,
as if the death of others offered us fuel for comfort
and not icy darkness that makes us feel more death in the death that touches us,
as if seeing friends, women, children, birds and trees die
won't carve into us the same despair as our own death.
A final philosopher stopped at my door and said:
“resign yourself to death because there is another life”,
as if I wasn’t familiar with the fate of the substance of the dead,
of the flesh of the dead and also the bones of the dead,
as if I didn’t know that in everything around us there are particles
dispersed forever from men who fell thousands or millions of years ago.
A drunkard from town comes to a halt at my door and restates:
"the only way to resign yourself to death is to never remember it, never remember it, never ever
remember it”.
He was no mystic, nor philosopher, nor was he much for books,
yet by the candle of his moonshine he glimpsed reasons and unreasons,
and so he lived, drunk and resigned, never once remembering death
until one Monday afternoon death remembered him.
Miguel Otero Silva (1908-1985) fue un miembro de la radical Generación del 28, exiliado y aprisionado durante las dictaduras de Gómez y de Jiménez. Fue el autor de 7 novelas y 6 libros de poesía, y fundó el periódico El Nacional. En su faceta de editor, él comisionó a Pablo Neruda el primero de los poemas que se convertiría en las Odas Elementales. Fue miembro del Senado Venezolano posterior al establecimiento de un estado democrático. Este poema fue publicado originalmente como parte del libro de poemas La mar que es el morir, título a su vez préstamo de Manrique en las Coplas por la muerte de su padre.
Miguel Otero Silva (1908-1985) was a member of the radical Generation of 28, exiled and imprisoned during both the Gómez and Jiménez dictatorships. He authored 7 novels and 6 books of poetry, and founded the daily newspaper El Nacional. As an editor he commissioned from Pablo Neruda the first of the poems which would become the Elemental Odes. He served on the Venezuelan senate after the establishment of a democratic state. This poem originally was a part of his poetry book named La mar que es el morir, named after a verse written by Manrique in the Coplas por la muerte de su padre.
Chris Holdaway (nacido en 1989) es un poeta, editor y traductor de Aotearoa Nueva Zelanda. Es el autor de Gorse Poems (Titus Books, 2022) y el director del medio artístico Compound Press. Traduce poesía a inglés del Francés, Alemán, y Español. chrisholdaway.com
Chris Holdaway (b. 1989) is a poet, publisher, and translator from Aotearoa New Zealand. He is the author of Gorse Poems (Titus Books, 2022) and the director of arts publisher Compound Press. He translates poetry into English from French, German, and Spanish. - chrisholdaway.com