Shadows on the Land, II - Carlos Villagra Marsal

         Ill-fated land,
orphaned by your children,
mansion of forgetfulness
and of punishment.

         Stuck in a desert sun,
swept by its destiny,
its obscure sorrows creak
under the signs.

Not only that, now thieves come
selling the water,
cutting deep forests into logs,
and burning the birds’ warbling.

         And so, the land that endures
drought as well as hail,
casts not even a shadow
on the helpless.

         Now is the time, dear land, that you save
your soft, intimate honeycombs
and you hide your vigorous blue
from the enemy.

         Forge your sacred mist,
plan your nourishing furor:
become again the intense mother
of the peasant.

for Roberto Ferndndez Hemmer

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Carlos Villagra Marsal (1932 - 2016) Paraguay
Translated by Ronald Haladyna
Source: Exotic Territory: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Paraguayan Poetry, Edited by Ronald Haladyna, Trafford Publishing, 2011